


Necessity's Bedfellows

by siderealOtaku



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Hero and Villain Cooperation, Multi, Redemption, road trip au, sort of, very heavily inspired by Episode Adachi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:59:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 64,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderealOtaku/pseuds/siderealOtaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Investigation Team has moved on with their lives, left Inaba and put away their Personas - except their leader. When Teddie goes missing and nobody comes to his aid, Yu must search the TV World with the help of the only other person unable to move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unbearable News

“Excuse me, sir, Miss Kujikawa is busy at the moment. No, I don’t know when she’ll be available to take your call. Would you like to leave a message?” asks a very frazzled-sounding assistant. 

“Tell her it’s…” He pauses, considering his word choice carefully, wondering if there was any way to cut through the endless chain of flunkies and assistants and get the woman herself on the line. 

_Tell her it’s an emergency._

_Tell her it’s started again._

_Tell her it’s about the other world._

_Tell her it’s about Teddie._

“Sir?” Ever the perceptive one, he can easily read the layers of not-so-well-hidden meaning in the assistant’s single word. _Who is this guy_ and _Why won’t he give up_ and _Oh hell, it’s another weirdo stalker, isn’t it_ and _How did this one manage to get her private number, she’ll have my head for this._

“Tell her it’s Yu Narukami,” he responds finally. 

“Right, sir, do you represent-“ He can hear the sound of murmured words in the background and the brief shuffling noise of the phone being liberated from the assistant’s hand. 

“Oh, senpai!” The voice that reaches his ear is several octaves lower than her adoring public is used to hearing at concerts, but it’s unmistakably her. Finally. 

“Rise-“ he chokes out, words catching in his throat as he tries to explain what has happened. 

She doesn’t give him the chance. “Sorry about Li-san, she’s new, I guess I must have forgotten to give her your name. How are you?” A question, but no time provided to answer it. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, but you know, planning the tour and all – yes, I made sure there’s a stop near you. Nothing big, just an appearance at that music store Yosuke’s working at part time. Inoue-san looked fit to burst when I told him, insisted that the scale was way low for my ‘current popularity level,’ that I should be thinking bigger, but I told him it’s for a friend and he finally gave in. Hey, you should come – it’s a week from Tuesday, and Yosuke will be there, it’ll be like a little mini-reunion. Yosuke told me when he asked that this girl he works with is a huge Risette fan. I think he likes her – I could just tell from his tone of voice when he asked me if I could stop by. Oh!” He hears a click as her long-nailed fingers shift the phone away from her ear. He tries a second time to start talking, but she’s shouting something at someone on the other side of the line. 

She’s gone less than a minute; her waterfall of words begins again almost immediately. “Oh, sorry, Senpai, that was Inoue-san. I’ve got a hairdresser’s appointment that I nearly forgot about. I’ll call when I can, I promise, and we’ll catch up for real – and don’t forget to be there next week for my special concert! The Seedy CD, by the train station. I’ll see you then, Senpai!” With a soft click and a cheery goodbye, Rise is gone, and his phone wallpaper – the team two years ago in summer, watermelon dripping from every grinning chin – stares blankly up at him. 

He sighs. A total bust, then. Yosuke had prattled on about exams, work, girls (his coworker at the music store in particular). Chie had complained that police training was ‘totally kicking her butt’ and that she would have quit if it wasn’t for the white-haired senpai she was trying so badly to impress. He hadn’t even been able to get ahold of Kanji or Naoto – the ever-in-demand Detective Prince was off in Europe somewhere hunting down some stolen artifact, and her steadfast assistant had of course accompanied her. Even Yukiko – steady, dependable Yukiko, the only one of them who still called Inaba home – had been able to spare him only a few seconds between the endless stream of increasingly high-profile guests flooding in for some anniversary celebration her Inn was hosting. 

He hadn’t been able to tell a single one of them about what had happened. 

Yu feels he hand not holding his phone clench into a fist, surprising himself with his own anger. They were the Investigation Team. Problems like this were their _job_. How could things like girls and concerts and the anniversaries of inns get in the way of their duty? What could be more important than….

Their lives, apparently. 

The silver-haired no-longer-a-teen glances around his small apartment. Sparse and clean, the walls undecorated save for a few photos of his friends, some of Nanako’s drawings and an autographed Risette poster. A few books (unopened) and video games (unplayed). Only the fridge, filled with perfectly organized ingredients and perfectly prepared cold dishes, betraying any sign of life. 

And a large-screen television, visibly scuffed with age, sitting in the middle of the single room like the centerpiece of some museum exhibit, its cord trailing on the floor, unconnected to any outlet. 

He’s back in the city, but the only traces of ‘life’ this room holds have to do with Inaba. In the two years since the group’s last reunion in the small town, he’s failed to acquire anything with any new meaning or form any new connections. No new books or games or CDs he’s particularly fond of, no menus for local restaurants or ticket stubs from events, or hastily-scrawled phone numbers for new acquaintances.

Of them all, he’s the only one who hasn’t been able to move on. 

He supposes it’s why the TV – _their_ TV – ended up with him. It had showed up on his stoop a little over a year ago, in a box with no address. Affixed to the blank black screen was a note from Yosuke saying that his college apartment didn’t have room for it, and he couldn’t make sure no one bought it anymore since he no longer worked at Junes. Yosuke hadn’t even asked – he’d just assumed that Yu was the guy to send it to. 

Now, he steps out of the too-empty apartment and into the same television, feeling the usual electric tingle along his arms and the drop in his stomach. He foolishly hopes for something, anything other than the sight which had greeted him just a few hours ago and prompted the frantic calls to the former Investigation Team. 

His hope is futile. 

The world on the other side of the ancient Junes television is neither fog-choked, as it once was, nor perpetually sunlit, as it had later become. Instead, a strange crimson sunset covers the land, dying trees and hills and buildings an eerie blood color. The sun rests on the lip of the horizon, baleful and staring, bringing to mind the great eye of the ancient fog-god who had once terrorized this place. 

This is strange, true – in the past years Yu cannot remember the TV world being anything but perfectly sunny, even in the depths of winter – but it is not the reason his fingers shook as he dialed the numbers of each of his friend. 

The thing that shakes Yu to his core – implacable Yu, leader of the Investigation Team, who has faced murderers and gods with nary a frightened shiver – is the large, dark, viscous stain which coats the ground at his feet. At first, he had thought it was water or oil or even urine, and that it merely looked like blood because of the light from the unusual sunset. But when he bent to get a closer look, the rich coppery reek had assaulted his nostrils, and he had seen something in the blood that chilled his heart like an ice attack directly to the chest: several clumps of blue and white fur, as well as marks that could only have been made by ursine claws. 

He calls for the bear, his throat already raw from doing so earlier in the day, hoping against hope that Teddie is merely off hiding or sleeping or looking at the magazines Yu sometimes brings him. That he accidentally scratched himself too roughly with his claws, or brushed up against a spiny bush. 

He knows that’s not true. None of his Personas have Kouzeon’s scanning powers, but somehow, in his heart or bones, the other world feels empty. Hollow. _Wrong_ in a way he remembers it feeling only once: when a self-doubting Teddie had fled to the Velvet Room shortly before their confrontation with the man behind the murders in Inaba. 

Teddie is missing. Teddie is hurt and in danger and none of the Investigation Team has the time to even listen, let alone help Yu. He had hoped to seek out the bear with the support of his friends. The journey into the depths of the TV world seems a thousand times more frightening than it would be if he could hear the constant beat of Yosuke’s music or feel Naoto’s hand on his shoulder as she helped him reason through the situation. And how was he supposed to even begin looking for Teddie without Rise’s powers? 

Yu, who had always drawn his power from his bonds with others, would have to face this alone. 

_Is there truly no one?_

Yu looks around with a start, expecting to see the familiar blue limousine which he has not visited in so long. Instead, he witnesses only the same crimson-dyed landscape. He is not in the Velvet Room, yet he hears Igor’s voice in his mind as clearly as though he were. 

_Is there truly no one?_

“Yes,” Yu speaks aloud, not sure how he knows that Igor can hear him, but certain that the long-nosed man can. “I called everyone in the Team, and they’re all….they’ve all got….life and stuff.” 

_And are these your only bonds?_

“The only ones that could help me now!” he insists. “This is a TV World thing, and I’m not getting non Persona users involved….it’s too dangerous! Look at what happened to Nanako!” Though the girl is as cheerful and healthy as always, he still shudders as he remembers that horrible day when he had nearly lost her. 

His other friends’ faces flicker through his mind. Kou…Ai….Naoki….Dojima, Sayoko, Hisano, even the fox from the shrine. He’s been careful to keep in touch with all of them, even as they left Inaba and became more and more spread out across the country (and even world – Ayane is in America now, at a music school). While the bonds he has formed with them strengthen him and grant him access to a variety of Personas, none of them have that power themselves. They cannot help him now. 

He waits, hoping for Igor to drop some kind of hint, even in his usual cryptic manner. Instead, the master of the Velvet Room only repeats: 

_Is there truly no one?_

The normally stoic Yu lets out an animalistic scream of frustration, pounding his fist against the stack of televisions that serves as his exit from this world, somehow still standing even though its keeper has departed. His knuckles split open as they connect with a sharp corner of metal, blood seeping through the cut. 

He feels an internal tug and the phantom weight of a tarot card in his non-injured hand and realizes that he has summoned a Persona – an unconscious reaction either to the pain or to his uncontrolled emotions. Because he had not had a specific one in mind, it is Izanagi who appears. His first Persona, silently loyal even when his friends have deserted him. 

The Persona hovers in midair before him, at rest, unmoving. In the strange sunset landscape, Izanagi’s usually brilliant silver armor is dyed a deep red. A memory rises to the surface – the roof of a building, a giant form filling the sky with fire, a second, blood-red Izanagi raising its sword alone with the first…

…and Yu realizes what Igor had been trying to tell him. There _was_ someone left. Someone with a Persona, who could survive danger and battles in this newly changed TV world. Someone who, like Yu himself, had not moved on. Who would not have acquired the clutter and rush of a new life; who would have all the time in the world to search for a missing bear.

Someone who might not want to help him, but might agree to do so….if not for the sake of a long-ago bond, then at least for a release from unending boredom. 

Resolutely, Yu dismisses Izanagi and steps back through the TV and into his apartment, his steps quickening with renewed purpose.


	2. Reluctant Cooperation

The graying, heavy-jowled guard cocks an eyebrow in surprise as Yu names the prisoner he wants to see. 

“That guy owe you money or something?” The guard’s large mouth quirks in a far-from-humorous smile, and Yu can almost hear the implied _eh, eh_ following the attempted joke. 

“No, sir.” The silver-haired man tries not to let his impatience show. He’s lost several hours on the train between the city and the prefectural prison (how did such a high-profile criminal end up in such a small, out of the way facility, he wonders idly). A few more moments courtesy of a slow guard can’t make things _that_ much worse. 

“Off your mother, then? Or maybe he’s your long-lost dad? Spill, kid – you’re the first visitor he’s had since he got locked up other than that old dick from Inaba.” The guard looks Yu over, taking in his un-brushed hair, wrinkled clothes, and the dark circles under his eyes with something that’s less interest and more of a desperate need for something to distract from boredom. The same sentiment, really, that he’s relying on to convince the prisoner he intends to visit to help him find Teddie. 

“I’m…” Yu trails off much in the same way he had earlier that day, on the phone with Rise’s assistant. He considers telling the guard _I’m the one who found him out, the one who caught him_ but knows he will not be believed. His own uncle hardly believes him, and he was _there_ when it happened. 

So he improvises. “Detective Dojima is my uncle,” he states, like it’s some sort of validation for his presence here. “His, uh, his daughter’s sick and he can’t stop by for a while. He asked me to come in his place.” He mentally begs Nanako’s forgiveness for using her as an excuse. 

The guard stands up, seemingly disappointed that Yu’s explanation had been so dull. He breathes a quiet sigh of relief as the thickset man leads him through the waiting room and along a narrow, brightly lit corridor. The man’s boredom makes it likely that he won’t remember Yu enough to mention his visit to Dojima the next time he showed up. 

Fear, lightning-brief but ice-cold, clenches in his chest. If his endeavors today succeed, the next time that Dojima comes here won’t be an ordinary social visit. It will be because former partner has gone missing, vanished inexplicably from his cell in the middle of the day. 

Yu finds himself in a long room full of cubicles separated by thick glass walls, almost certainly bulletproof. A quick glance does not reveal any TVs, meaning he’ll have to go to his backup plan. _If,_ that is, he can convince his last available option to help him in the first place. 

The guard leads him to the furthest cubicle on the left, briefly showing him how to operate the phone bolted to the table in front of him. The graying guard rattles off the desired name and prisoner number to yet another guard, this one thin and bespectacled but equally bored-looking. With another electric shock, Yu realizes that the man who had monopolized so much of their time and effort and brainpower during his stay in Inaba was nothing but another run-of-the-mill criminal to these men. 

The first guard exits, saying something about abiding by the time limits and calling for help if he needed it. The second guard stands up slowly from his seat (which is, thankfully, on the opposite side of the room from the cubicle where Yu has been placed) and shuffles off down yet another hallway. 

Yu attempts to take this time to go over what he plans to say in his head, but all too soon he feels rather than hears a soft thud as a body settles into the chair opposite him. 

For the first time since they faced a fiery god on a rooftop together, Yu Narukami is face to face with Tohru Adachi. 

He has changed surprisingly little. His hair is longer, falling just past his ears, as messy and untamed as always. Underneath the older man’s untrimmed bangs, Yu can see familiar grey eyes staring out at him, listless and filled with ennui. The killer’s strangely disproportionate face is neither adorned with a goofy grin nor twisted into a sinister smirk, but remains neutral, expressionless. Watching. Waiting for Yu to make the first move, to explain why it is him and not Dojima who sits in the hard plastic visitor’s chair. 

Yu realizes that he has no idea of where to start. How, after all, do you ask the man you were personally responsible for defeating and arresting to _help_ you? 

Under the weight of those tired eyes, Yu forgoes any sort of greeting and decides to start with the story he told the guard. “Dojima-san can’t come visit for a while, and he sent me to tell you.” 

“Typical of him,” Adachi responds in a flat voice. “Thinking I care about his visits or something.” 

“T-the guard says he comes pretty often,” Yu tries not to let a nervous stutter creep into his voice. He is only partially successful. 

The slightest hint of a smile quirks up the edges of the killer’s thin lips. “You wouldn’t know, would you? You hightailed it out of that hick town as soon as you could. You were choking on your own boredom without my little game to entertain you.” 

Yu realizes he will have to step up his game if he wants to catch this dangerous man’s attention. “Boredom must be something you’re more than familiar with, Adachi-san.” 

The prisoner’s face contorts into a pout that, though he is nearly thirty by now, makes him appear all of five years old. “The dumbass psychiatrists still won’t let me anywhere near a TV. They claim they don’t believe me when I tell them what happened, yet they’re convinced if they leave me alone with anything with a screen I’ll disappear through it. Typical shrinks.” 

Yu has to suppress a smile. He is pretty sure he has everything he needs to get the man opposite him right where he wants him. Despite his promise to quietly serve his sentence and abide by the rules, Adachi has all but admitted to being bored out of his mind, and Yu can provide the one thing he desires above all else: _amusement_. 

He keeps his voice calm and level, making his next comment seem as offhand as possible. “Actually, Adachi-san, that’s exactly what I want you to do.” 

The convict’s eyes widen, and his face settles into an expression Yu is all too familiar with from the time when the man was posing as nothing but your average goofy cop: complete and utter bewilderment. For the first time in this conversation, perhaps the first time since Naoto had accused him in Inaba Hospital, Adachi is caught completely off guard. 

“Wha?” is all he manages to choke out. 

“I want you to disappear through a TV,” Yu clarifies, keeping his voice neutral and steady. 

“I heard you the first time,” With his face still frozen in a rictus of shock, what would usually be a snappy comment loses all of its venom. “I’m just trying to figure out who or what put you up to this.” 

Belatedly, Yu recalls the events of the last time Adachi entered a television, understanding the killer’s distrust. Though he hadn’t been present himself, he constructs the scene in his mind – tumbling through without control, leaving behind the relative safety of prison for the horror of the mad red-haired man atop his twisted tower. 

“Nobody put me up to this,” he hurriedly assured the man opposite him. “This is…this is me. Asking you. To help me.” 

Not exactly the smoothest delivery, but he hoped he’d accomplished his goal. Adachi’s listless eyes were alight with interest, and now the ball was in his court. Yu knew that the former cop needed to be in control of the situation. Needed to feel like his attention and aid were being _begged_ for, like his talents were in demand. 

The taller man leans back in his chair, stretches slightly. Yu prepares himself for the inevitable ‘oh how the tables have turned’ monologue, and is utterly startled when it doesn’t come. 

Adachi’s shoulders slump and hunch forward. He peers up at Yu through his thatch of unkempt bangs, a small smile adorning his pale face. For a moment, it as if time has fallen away and Yu is looking into the eyes of his uncle’s goofy partner, the last man in Inaba anyone would suspect of being behind the grisly deaths of Yamano and Konishi. 

“Gosh, kid, it’s not like I don’t appreciate you inviting me on your little playdate, but there’s no _way_ I’m going to drop everything to go frolic around with your team of idiots. I promised you I’d follow the rules, and I am. I’m locked up in this boring box of a building serving my sentence quietly. Life, by the way, in case they didn’t mention it in the two minutes or so of news coverage my entire trial got. From the look on your face I can tell _something’s_ happening in that precious little TV world of yours, but you’re more of a dumbass than I thought if you think I’m going to help you. Too much effort. Nothing in it for me.” 

The former leader of Inaba’s Investigation Team drops his eyes to the scarred plastic of the tabletop in front of him. He knows it’s a sign of weakness, a sign that Adachi will easily pick up on, but he can’t look his former enemy in the eye for a moment longer. An image flashes through his mind: two Personas, the bright Izanagi and the dark, lightning arcing between them as they banish a flaming god in a single strike. 

Had he really thought that that one moment, that one action, meant that the man on the other side of the bulletproof glass had truly changed? That it meant enough to convince an imprisoned man to help the one who put him there? 

That it had meant anything at all? 

A low cackle reaches him through the off-white headset of the phone, still pressed firmly against his ear despite the broken eye contact. Yu doesn’t need to look up to know that the other man’s pathetic aw-shucks expression has vanished. He can picture the bitter smirk that graces Adachi’s features; he can remember how that villainous grin hid the just-slightly-wrong proportions of Adachi’s face, as though it was the expression that face was meant to hold all along. 

“Or did you think because of what happened with that bastard Sho that I…” He laughs again, disbelieving. “that I _like_ you? That I’m _on your side_? Oh, kid, you’re as naïve as your stupid uncle if you think that.” 

“No,” Yu responds bitterly, still not meeting his opponent’s eyes. He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, had hoped he wouldn’t have to admit to Adachi the true reason that he had come requesting a killer’s aid. “You don’t like me, and I don’t like you either. But you’re my last option.” There. It was out. His last chance to catch Adachi’s attention: an honest admission that his friends, the people whose bonds had been his power – a power that the man across from him had mocked so thoroughly that day at the top of Magatsu Inaba – had failed him. 

He dares a look up. Adachi’s face radiates interest now, and he leans forward, smirk still in place as he hangs on every word. “Your little friends….” he confirms. 

“Refused to help me,” Yu isn’t mad at them, really, he _understands_ that they have lives and can’t drop everything to accompany him, but for Adachi’s sake he laces the words with bitterness. 

“They’ve all abandoned you. That upstart kid detective, the whore idol,” Adachi ticks the names off on his long, pale fingers. “The brute, the bitch from the inn, even that Hanamura kid who loved to undress you with his eyes? And the bear-thing?” 

“Teddie’s missing,” he explains, knowing that the former detective is giving him his full attention. “He vanished and something weird and probably dangerous happened to the TV world, but when I called the others, none of them would help. They were all too busy.” He hates dragging his friends through the mud like this, but something is _seriously_ wrong, and he isn’t going to let his last hope slip through his fingers. He tastes bile in the back of his throat, hating himself for doing this, hating himself for thinking that the events of the P1 Grand Prix had changed Adachi for the better. 

“Fine,” Adachi shrugs theatrically, as though he is doing Yu an enormous personal favor. “I’ll tag along on your happy little adventure, if only to _watch you fail_.” The killer’s voice drops several octaves on the last three words. “But when we’re done, you owe me, kid. Whatever I ask. Your admission that your stupid bonds aren’t worth shit, at least. Your life, maybe. Or a change to these rules of yours I agreed to follow back when you caught me. That’s my condition. Take it or leave it.” 

He is going to regret this. 

He can’t do this. Better to leave now, to call the deal off. Blow up the Investigation Team’s phones until they listen to him. Or even go it alone, as much as that terrifies him. 

“Agreed.” The word slips out of his mouth, contrasting with the thoughts screaming through his head. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” 

Adachi laughs again, this time less bitter and more as though he has thought of something genuinely funny. “If I were a better person, I’d have inserted some rule that the deal’s off if you can’t even _get_ us back to your creepy little world in the first place. Don’t you remember what I said? Shrinks won’t even let me be in the same room as a TV, let alone get close enough to stick my head in!” 

Slowly, Yu begins to maneuver something out of his pocket, keeping his movements small and smooth so that the guard won’t notice and think he’s snuck in a weapon or something. The task accomplished, he places his slightly out-of-date cell phone on the desk where Adachi can clearly see it. The attachment which serves as the key to his hasty, improvised plan emits a powerful beam of light, turning both the sheet of glass and the convict’s face behind it a pale, washed-out blue. 

“Sorry, kid, don’t think I can fit in there.” Adachi’s face is all sheepish grins again, but the note of smug, self-satisfied triumph is still present. He’s still certain that Yu is going to fail, that the oh-so-perfect team leader’s begging will have been for nothing. 

Yu doesn’t respond. He has a goal to accomplish, and isn’t interested in delaying things by doing any more verbal jousting with the former detective. He presses a few buttons on the phone, mentally praying that the bulletproof glass is thick enough to serve his planned purpose. 

It is. The image is dim, shaky and contains far too much blue and far too little of any other color, and the volume hushed and barely audible, but the miniature projector is clearly working. The glass has become an impromptu television screen, broadcasting, ironically, an announcement regarding Risette’s upcoming tour. 

Adachi’s eyes bug out comically again, and, despite the urgency of the situation, Yu allows himself a moment of satisfaction. The silver-haired man replaces the corded prison phone in its cradle with his right hand as his left reaches out towards the television he has created. Another quick bolt of fear strikes him, momentarily certain that he will touch nothing but cool glass – but no, his outstretched fingers pass as easily through the glass as they had through the Junes TV earlier that same day. 

On the other side of the glass, Adachi’s long fingers have passed through just as easily, erasing Yu’s last bit of fear – that the years in prison or his own state of mind might have robbed Adachi of the power Yu still possessed. 

“Let’s go,” Yu hisses at the last man in the world he wants to start this journey with. “Before the guard realizes that something’s going on.” 

He has mere seconds to wonder if he hasn’t just made the stupidest decision of his life before both men angle their bodies forward and slip smoothly through opposite sides of the glass.


	3. Forensic Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay between chapters, I'm working full days and the WiFi is kind of spotty. I'll try for more frequent updates from now on. I'm glad people are enjoying the story so far!

Yu’s fears that the makeshift television would take them to two different locations are immediately assuaged when he lands on something bony with far too many elbows. A sharp gasp issues from the man below him as the killer lands face first in the crimson-lit dirt. 

“Shit, kid, get off!” Adachi snaps. “And lay off the Mega Beef Bowls. What do you weigh, a thousand pounds?” 

Yu momentarily fails to comply as he blinks rapidly, attempting to orient himself despite the pain throbbing through his hips and legs from his collision with Adachi’s angular form. The red sun has still failed to set, and areas of the TV world usually familiar to him are unrecognizable in the eerie, blood-hued light. 

“If you plan to ravish me, get to it. I haven’t got all day,” the former detective deadpans. “Otherwise, would you terribly mind _not sitting on me?_ ” 

Yu rolls off Adachi, not particularly caring if his elbows collide with the back of the taller man’s head. The convict may be his associated for now – he will not call him partner, not now, not ever, that’s _Yosuke’s_ word – but Yu cannot bring himself to particularly care about the health and well-being of Saki Konishi’s murderer. 

Behind him, the silver-haired man hears Adachi’s muffled cursing as his uncle’s former partner clambers to his feet. The stream of expletives abruptly halts. Yu whips around, worried by the silence despite his professed apathy regarding the other man’s condition. 

The expression of bug-eyed wonder is back on Adachi’s face as he turns in place, drinking in every aspect of the changed world. A bitter part buried deep within Yu insists it’s merely an affectation, a facade just as much as any other emotion the man expressed, except perhaps utter and total sadistic insanity. Yet another part insists on pointing out that the killer’s face _seems_ more open, his feelings more genuine than they had been before. 

“Woah…” says Adachi simply. His companion waits for the inevitable sarcastic follow-up, but none comes. The escaped prisoner stares goggle-eyed at the surrounding scenery. To Yu’s surprise, he focuses not on the crimson sun or the oppressive heat of the sticky air, but on the flowers, trees and rivers which the new sun illuminates. Belatedly, the Persona user realizes that his reluctant ally has never been inside the TV World since the banishment of Izanami’s fog. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Yu remarks, not expecting Adachi to agree. “This is the world you tainted by using it as a _murder weapon._ This is the world I busted you out of prison to save.” 

Adachi interrupts Yu’s self-righteous tirade, his eyes never leaving the fogless scenery. “Yes. It is.” 

The silver-haired man doesn’t let himself think about how truly _sincere_ his hated companion sounds. “The…the place where I…where Teddie last was is over here.” He stalks away without waiting to see if the older man is following him. “I’d like to get your thoughts on the scene. You were literally the worst detective Inaba’s ever seen, but I figure you have to have gone through at least some kind of forensics training.” For perhaps the fiftieth time that day, Yu desperately wishes that Rise or Naoto was there with him. Kouzeon’s scanner or the Detective Prince’s intuition would resolve the situation in minutes, and he would never have to so much as look at Tohru Adachi ever again. 

The aforementioned murderer kneels at the side of the pool of blood and matted fur. He pokes around, sniffs the air, dips his finger in Teddie’s blood and stares intently at the viscous liquid dripping from his hand. For one gruesome moment, Yu is sure that the unhinged man is going to lift the stained digits to his mouth and greedily slurp up the blood. Instead, Adachi addresses Yu, his tone a study in neutrality. 

“So we know that whatever got him was something that he was expecting, or at least knew about.” 

“What?” The younger man is caught completely off guard at Adachi’s surprisingly insightful assessment of the scene. 

The grey-eyed man points at the oozing stain. “Look at the blood. No, not like that. That glance and look away thing. I know it’s gross, but you’ll never get any information out of the situation that way. I know it’s your friend’s blood there, but you need to put that away. Lock it up so you can analyze the scene like a cop.” 

Fury boils within Yu, his usually slow to build anger exploding out of his frame like dynamite. Within the space of less than a minute, he goes from completely calm to angry in a way that only Tohru Adachi can make him fee.. “Yeah?” he spits out, the words arcing through the space between them like poison-tipped arrows. “Because _you_ should be telling me how to act _like a cop_?” 

Adachi reaches out, his slender fingers lightning-quick, crossing the same distance as Yu’s heated words. The Fool jerks backwards instinctively, but even his reflexes, finely honed from battles and training with Chie, cannot help him here. The insane man holds is chin in a vice grip, preventing Yu from looking away from the crimson stain that could very well be all that remained of one of his dearest friends. 

“Look,” the convict hisses again, then a third time, “ _Look!_ ” 

“What do you want me to see?” Yu is fully controlled by his anger, unable to calm himself down even if he wanted to. He would have struck the smirk off the other man’s face by now had it not been for Adachi’s death grip on his throat. 

“Do I have to spell it out for you kid? Man, you’re dumber than I thought!” His fingers tightened, robbing Yu of the breath he needs to respond. “What happens when a Shadow dies? You have somehow managed to survive the ones I threw at you, so you should at least be able to tell me the answer to that.” 

Adachi’s grip loosens enough to allow Yu to answer. “They vanish. Into a cloud of black fog.” 

“And your _beary_ obnoxious friend is a Shadow, yes?” 

“You don’t know him!” Despite himself, Yu attempts to break free from his captor’s grip, earning himself a squeeze to the trachea for his efforts. “He…” he gasps, fighting desperately for breath, attempting to ignore the gray stars which have begun to bloom at the edges of his vision. “He’s so much more…” 

“Yu.” His name – not kid, not bastard, not stupid immature brat, but simply his _name_ \- falling from Adachi’s too-thin lips cuts through his choked speech. “That may very well be true, but _that’s not what I’m asking._ ” Adachi’s tone holds no mockery or sarcasm; he merely states the facts in a level, neutral tone. As reluctant as Yu is to admit it, the man sounds like a cop again. 

“Shadows don’t bleed,” the former prisoner continues. “Shadows, as you’ve said, turn into black fog and simply dissipate. Even the big Shadows, your friends’ shadows, never bled a drop. So the blood here means one of two things. Either it belongs to the thing that attacked your bear friend, or Teddie was in his human body when it arrived.” 

“There’s fur in the blood,” Yu points out, the grip on his trachea relaxing as the two men are bought caught in the relentless flow of logic and deduction. “Implying that it was either a really violent fight, or that it’s Teddie’s blood. But if he was in his human form, there wouldn’t be fur, because he wouldn’t be wearing the suit.” 

“How long does it take the freak to switch between the two forms?” The sarcasm is back in Adachi’s voice, and Yu nearly snaps at him. This time, however, he successfully reins in his temper, realizing that the insights the man is providing, though poorly delivered, are in fact valuable. 

“As far as I know, he can call up the human body pretty much instantly,” The former team leader is surprised to realize that he’s actually spent very little time considering how Teddie’s transformations actually worked. Though he’s been involved with the TV World and its secrets for several years now, there’s still so little he knows about the strange land that lies within human hearts and minds. If he had learned more, had tried harder to understand the realm to which Izanami had handed him a key that long-ago day at the MOEL Gas Station, could he have prevented this from happening in the first place? 

He tries to focus on the train of thought at hand, to avoid getting caught up in regrets and what-ifs. “I don’t know exactly, but I think he just decides he wants to be human, steps out of the suit and there he is. But he always keeps the suit on when he’s in this world – he says it makes his human body feel unnatural and sick, being here too long. He only ever used the human body when he came out of the TV to visit us.” 

Adachi’s fingers slide away from Yu’s throat entirely, coming to rest beneath his pointed chin and tapping occasionally against the pale flesh, leaving dots of ursine blood. The repetitive motion seems familiar to Yu, and he is startled to realize that he has seen Dojima do just the same thing many times while thinking over a particularly frustrating case. 

“So, it seems to me, the most likely situation is this: The bear was aware that something dangerous was coming, and he went to go whine to Leader like he always does. I’m assuming that’s his personal Sensei-visiting device?” Adachi gestures at the stack of TVs several feet away. 

Yu rubs at the mark on his neck left by Adachi’s grasping fingers. He is reluctant to give the crafty killer any information that he could use to escape to the outside world, but he knows that Adachi needs all the data he can get to properly analyze the scene. 

“Yes.” He decides on a simple answer that gives Adachi only what he needs to know. He doesn’t even tell him whether the TV exit leads to Inaba or the city. 

“So he was getting out of his suit to go visit his beloved Sensei with the news that a big scawy monster was chasing him and he needed protection. But the whatever-it-was was closer than he thought, and had been waiting for the moment when he was most vulnerable to make its move. It might even have been someone or something that knew Teddie already, and knew about the…. _unique skills_ he has developed.” 

Yu nods. “That seems logical,” he reluctantly admits. “But that doesn’t help us figure out what happened to him.” 

Adachi begins to pace back and forth, the tips of his simple brown shoes brushing the edges of the bloodstain just before he turns. For the second time in a short span of minutes, Yu is reminded of Dojima. 

“Doesn’t it?” the killer asks. “The thing that attacked Teddie knew enough to recognize his most vulnerable moment and choose then to strike. It was able to differentiate between the human Teddie and the bear-clown-suit-thing, and realize that the human one was easier prey. All that points to something smart, something capable of planning and analyzing. And something _way_ more powerful than a random Shadow. Kid, I’m in _way_ over my head here. I don’t think this is worth-“ 

“Our deal,” Yu chokes out, still catching his breath in the aftermath of the convict’s fierce grip. “Anything you want.” 

Adachi nods, seemingly placated for now. “Right. Well, we’re _both_ going to die then, but at least I’ll die with you in my debt, which is _something_ , isn’t it?” 

A ragged, dry but genuine laugh rings out across the empty crimson plain, and it takes Yu a moment to realize that it is his own. “Yeah,” he admits, cracking a small smile at his companion. “I guess it is.” 

An awkward silence hangs between the two men as grey eyes meet and lock. For several long seconds, neither breaks the held gaze, until Yu looks deliberately away, off into the distance. “Can you find where that…. _whatever-it-was_ took Teddie?” 

Adachi nods, all mocking gone from his tone or posture. The former detective has taken the case, and he will not rest until it is solved, as little as he may care about the parties involved. “I can. But I need rest first. It’s impossible to sleep a wink with the guards stomping around and clinking keys and swearing at all hours of the night.” 

Yu nods. “Sleep, then. But as soon as you wake up, we start out.” 

The silver-haired man does not think that he will be able to sleep with Adachi present, that he will spend a wakeful several hours gripping the hilt of his sword and watching the criminal’s ever twitch and listening to his every breath. To his surprise, he is wrong. His fingers relax their grip on the sword’s hilt as he drifts off beneath the unchanging crimson sky.


	4. Creative Thinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any of you still reading this, I apologize sincerely for the extreme delay. I can't promise an immediate return to regular updates, but I should have chapter 5 out within a few days.

“Absolutely not,” Yu states with finality. 

Adachi shrugs. “Alright. Have it your way. We set off across this uncharted wasteland without a single bite of food or medicinal item between us. We’ll play a giant game of Russian Roulette with this entire _world_. Either we find that thing that snatched the pervert-bear within about 72 hours – unlikely, given its _absolutely massive_ head start – or we end our lives hopelessly lost here, starving and gibbering and driven out of our minds with desire for water. That is, if our bear-abducting friend doesn’t find us first and take advantage of our weakened state to _rip us limb from limb!_ ” 

Yu crosses his arms in front of his body, unconsciously adopting a defensive stance. He decides that it’s not the “working with Adachi” part that’s so terrible. It’s that Adachi is taking the whole thing so _seriously_ and actually being _helpful_. Of course, he’s taking every possible opportunity to talk down to Yu and insult his intelligence, but the advice the killer dispenses has all been undeniably sound. He’s an utterly disagreeable man – but he’s also _right_.

Unfortunately, the latest thing that Yu’s ally has been right about is their need for supplies. They’d deduced that the hopefully still living Teddie and his captor were probably inside the TV world. The blood smears led away from the stack of TVs that served as the only nearby exit, and the strange sunset that the invading entity had most likely caused continued to persist. Though he didn’t contribute this particular reason during his brainstorming session with Adachi, Yu was fairly certain that, if something supernatural began causing a disturbance in the outside world, his friends _would_ notice despite their busy schedules and material concerns. 

The pair’s deduction, while it meant that those Yu cared about were safe at least for the time being, also revealed the necessity of a potentially long journey through a world unfamiliar to both men. There seemed little hope of finding Teddie quickly, given both the captor’s head start and Yu’s lack of a scanning Persona. Hence, the discussion – or rather argument – the two wary allies were currently having regarding supplies. 

“Look, kid,” Adachi shrugs and rolls his eyes as though _Yu_ had been the one to propose that a convicted murderer be allowed to hop out of a television into a heavily populated city for the sake of a shopping spree. “I’ll stay here and wait for Great Leader like a good little boy, since apparently you’d rather _starve to death_ than let me go to a couple stores with you.” 

Yu rolls his eyes in return, feeling yet again that Adachi is bringing out the worst in him, that he is sinking to the criminal’s level rather than attempting to raise Adachi to his. The convict’s infuriating presence has turned the usually stoic leader into an argumentative, stubborn, petulant child. “Yes, because that plan makes _just_ as much sense. I leave, and the minute I’m gone you step out of the TV and are miles away before I even get back with the groceries.” 

“Our deal,” the murderer reminds him. “Weren’t you the one bringing it up when I was complaining about the likelihood of my own death?” 

“And you don’t think I realize that a free ticket out of here isn’t worth a hell of a lot more than whatever you plan on asking me for?” Yu retorts. 

Adachi snaps his fingers, summoning a midnight blue card covered in intricate silver designs. Yu’s reaction speed seems to slow to a crawl as he racks his brain, desperately trying to remember which Personas he had used in that long-ago battle against Magatsu Izanagi. He has Loki’s name on his lips and the card in his hand before he realizes that, instead of summoning his red-armored Persona, the man opposite him has merely thrown the card at Yu’s feet. 

“Take it,” Adachi says after a full minute of Yu making no move to do so. “Take it, then call one of yours capable of subduing me or holding me down. That should be enough to ensure that I can’t escape this place – even by _your_ impossible standards.” 

Again, that surprising competence, that infuriating soundness of reason, that completely unexpected _rationality_ that challenged Yu’s ever strongly held, formerly unshakable belief regarding Tohru Adachi. For a brief, bitter moment, Yu considers summoning Mot. His mind revels darkly in thoughts of Adachi trapped in darkness, feeling walls close in around him, gasping and struggling for breath. He fights the urge. He is not the villain here. He has never killed a man – Shadows, yes, Shadows which bore the likenesses of his dearest friends, but that was completely different from what Adachi had done. 

Wasn’t it? 

Yu forcibly derails that particular train of thought. Wordlessly, he summons Byakko, mentally commanding the great white beast to not let Adachi out of his sight. Byakko fixes the killer with intense, knowing blue eyes. Yu takes more pleasure than he probably should at the shiver this stare produces in Adachi. 

“I’m sure I won’t be gone long.” There is a note of mockery in the silver haired man’s voice that would have made Adachi himself proud. “Got any special requests?” 

Of course, the man was somehow prepared with a snide response even for this. “I’ve written up a little list.” Edging past the staring tiger, Adachi presses a folded piece of paper into Yu’s hands. The stoic leader turns wordlessly around and steps through the TV into his apartment before the biting response can slip from the tip of his traitorous tongue. 

He will not allow himself to fall any further towards the dark abyss where people like the convict reside. 

He _cannot_. 

To Yu’s continuing irritation, the supply list is well thought out, full of items that would be beneficial for their search: canned food, first aid items, rope, and other such sensible stuff. Scribbled at the bottom of the page is the only item that the silver-haired man finds himself able to take objection to: “a gun”. 

He is not yet that foolish – or, perhaps, it would be better to say “no longer that trusting”. Arming Adachi with a gun, despite the admitted advantage the former cop’s skill would provide, would do nothing but ensure a swift and final end to their uneasy cooperation. 

Yet, somehow, Yu finds himself apparently _considering_ the convict’s request as he stands in his apartment, surrounded by overfilled bags from the local Junes. He reaches into the darkness beneath his perfectly made futon and withdraws a small snub-nosed pistol and a full pouch of bullets. Naoto had insisted that the entire Team carry them and learn how to use them, pointing out that none of them had ever mastered summoning their Personas outside of the TV World as the Shadow Operatives did. However, Yu had never gotten the hang of the thing, and had given up after a couple of lessons, insisting that his sword would serve. 

Without allowing himself to think about why he was doing it, Yu stuffs the gun into the bottom of a bag containing batteries and bandages. He rationalizes that it could serve as an emergency backup weapon for himself should something happen in his stead. 

He is pleased at the sight that greets him as he staggers back through the TV, arms overflowing with Junes bags. Adachi paces nervously, trying his level best to remain as far as possible from the stalking, cold-eyed Persona. “Can we get _going_ now?” The request comes out as a whine. The criminal’s smooth façade has unmistakably frayed in the time that Yu has been gone. 

He dismisses Byakko with a snap, dropping half of the bags at Adachi’s feet. He does not give the other man the gun, and he makes sure that the bag containing it is one of the ones he keeps to carry himself. Almost as an afterthought, he tosses Magatsu Izanagi’s card back to its owner. He will not leave the man completely undefended in this strange red world – and, unlike a gunfight, he feels confident that he can win a Persona battle, should Adachi turn on him and start one. 

Without exchanging another word, the unlikely pair sets out in the direction indicated by the trail of blood. Yu’s nervousness steadily increases as they quickly pass the squares of grassy land which formerly housed Yukiko’s castle, Rise’s strip club and Namatame’s eerie false heaven. He spares no more than a single glance for the tumbled ruins and rushing waterfall that had once twisted itself into a nightmare version of Inaba on Adachi’s whim. Adachi, he notices, steadfastly ignores the familiar area until it is nearly out of sight, before casting a single brief, backward glance when he thinks that Yu isn’t looking. Yu expects (hopes?) to see either neutral boredom or a smug smile adorn the convict’s face, and is surprised (disgusted?) to catch a glimpse of what looks suspiciously like sadness or guilt. 

The bitter mood the leader has been suppressing all day rises to the surface, inexplicably set off by that single sad glance from a man he feels does not deserve the luxury of regretting what he has done. “What were you expecting to see, a rotting corpse that used to be your wife?” 

Despite the nature of their shared Persona, Yu doesn’t expect Adachi to catch that reference. He is yet again surprised when the convict laughs, short and bitter. “Poor Izanagi. Putting in all that effort for a smelly, maggoty skeleton.” 

“Honestly, she wouldn’t have been worth it even if she hadn’t rotted away,” Yu admits, shuddering as he remembers friend after friend throwing themselves in front of him to protect him from the goddess’s putrid grasp. How had bonds that strong faded away nearly to nothing, reached the point where he couldn’t get any of them on the phone even when the world needed saving again? 

Adachi laughs again, a laugh that is abruptly cut off as he realizes what Yu meant. “So it was Izanami? She was the one responsible for everything?” 

It should seem strange to Yu that Adachi accepts a goddess’s involvement so easily, even if the convict had written him a letter detailing his suspicions regarding a larger plan. Instead, all the silver-haired Persona user can focus on is the easy way the convict shifted the blame away from himself. “No. She was responsible for giving us our Personas, starting rumors about the Midnight Channel, and then sitting back and watching what happened. _You_ are still one hundred percent responsible for the people you _murdered for fun_.” 

Adachi doesn’t retort, doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he switches the topic with a smoothness that further irritates Yu. “Tell me about her.” 

He doesn’t want to. He wants to stay silent and focus on finding Teddie, doing his best to ignore the man beside him. But there is a strange allure to sharing the story with Adachi, talking about the things he had seen and endured with someone who at least understood what was going on. 

So he talked. The normally reserved Yu spoke for what felt like hours (impossible to tell beneath the judgmental eye of the unchanging red sun). He told Adachi everything, starting with the day the Investigation Team had received his letter from jail. He relives the revelations of his final day in Inaba, the endless red-and-gray maze of Yomotsu Hirasaka, the pain of the Thousand Curses, and the final blow which had brought not joy but merely relief and exhaustion. For the most part, Adachi stays silent, venturing only a single comment when Yu reveals the disguise Izanami had been using to observe them. 

“The MOEL attendant? Shit, I thought about picking her up sometimes!” 

Yu does not respond. What can he say to that? 

When he has finally finished his tale (ending with the restoration of the TV World to its original form, not wanting to discuss the heartfelt disguise of his final day in Inaba) he lapses immediately into silence, hoping that the pair can stay that way. His hopes are dashed when Adachi immediately pipes up, complaining of tiredness, sore arms, sore feet, sore _everything_ and demanding a break. 

“Not yet. We still have no idea where Teddie is, and there’s still blood on the ground. I’m worried that even if Teddie’s kidnapper hasn’t hurt him further, he could pass out or even die from blood loss. I don’t think his human body’s indestructible or immortal or anything…” 

Adachi shades his eyes, glancing up at the sun which has still not moved from its position in the sky. “This is hopeless. We’re not getting anywhere. We need a better vantage point to look around and get some idea of where…well, _anything_ is”. 

“Well how do you suggest we do that? There aren’t exactly any mountains around!” Yu gestures sarcastically at the surrounding grassland, broken up by occasional small streams or clumps of bushes and flowers. 

Adachi makes an exaggerated hand motion, aping the technique Yu uses to summon his Personas. “Haven’t you got any that can fly and are big enough to carry riders? Some dragon or something?” 

Yu wonders briefly how Adachi knows so much about Personas, but figures he must have gleaned some knowledge from observing the Investigation Team fight their way through his lair. “Of course I have ones that can fly,” he snaps, “but they’re _Personas_. They’re for fighting Shadows. I can’t just….ride on one’s back!” 

The criminal shrugs. “Why not? Unless you’ve got a dish-face like your fake idol friend – and I’m assuming you don’t, otherwise why would you have come to me for help – then it’s our best option.”   
He’s right. 

He’s utterly, frustratingly, damnably, _right_. 

Yu wordlessly summons Seiryu, not even bothering to notice if Adachi flinched or became visibly frightened again. He stands awkwardly in front of the great coiling dragon, not quite sure how to address a Persona outside of combat. 

“Um…yeah,” he stammers. “I, I mean I guess we, need to get up in the air and take a look, and we can’t fly, and you can, so…” 

He trails off. The dragon doesn’t respond, but neither does it move to attack him as he puts a hand on its scaly side. He stands there for several minutes, unwilling to make the next move, until Adachi begins loudly and pointedly clearing his throat, interspersed with several coughs that sound suspiciously like “coward”. 

Swinging a leg over Seiryu’s back, Yu grasps a fistful of the creature’s mane. He feels Adachi mount up behind him. Luckily, the dragon sports thick white hair all along the ridge of his back, eliminating the need for Adachi to hold onto Yu’s back or shoulders. 

He is struggling for the words to issue a command to the Persona to take them up when Seiryu, seemingly sensing its master’s intentions, begins to rise of his own accord. The suddenly sharp wind steals the breath from Yu’s lungs and the ground falls away at a dizzying rate as the immense dragon and its two tiny passengers ascend into the eerie red sky.


	5. Desperate Struggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how long this took. I wonder if anyone is still reading this?

Yu has just barely begun to notice the strange dark mass on the ground when Seiryu dives directly towards it. He tries to call out a warning to Adachi, but the wind swallows his words. A moment later, Yu realizes the purposelessness of his intended warning – Adachi, seated safely atop the wider part of the creature’s back, is not the one in danger. As the dragon Persona dips its head to aid with the sharp descent, Yu begins to slip forward, his position on the creature’s narrower neck suddenly shaky and unstable. He grabs for a fistful of the creature’s mane, misses, and begins to slide down the scaly side, towards the ground still dizzyingly far below. 

Hands grasp firmly onto Yu’s wrists, halting his descent. As Seiryu continues to arrow towards the ground, Adachi slowly hauls Yu the necessary few inches upwards until the silver-haired man can grab onto two of the creature’s spikes. He feels but does not acknowledge the killer’s hands on his back the entire time, braced to provide a counterweight should Yu slip or lose his balance again. 

Yu regains his seat just in time to feel the solid _thud_ as the dragon lands on a small, grassy hill in a part of the TV world completely unfamiliar to either man. He finger-combs wind-whipped silver hair from his face as he turns to confront his ally. 

“You-“ 

Adachi cuts Yu off with a smirk before he can even begin to ask the question. “Don’t worry, kid, I’m not going soft or anything. I just figured that if you ate it, that thing you summoned would vanish as well, and I’d end up a splat on the ground myself.” Yu nods, feeling a strange relief that Adachi’s actions had a comprehensibly selfish motive. 

“Anyway.” The criminal stretches lazily, the muscles in his back and shoulders popping audibly as he rotates his long limbs. Yu marvels that the strength to hold him up for what had felt like at least a minute lurked within Adachi’s lanky, awkward frame. He then mentally slaps himself for even remotely admiring any part or quality of Tohru Adachi. 

“Anyway,” Adachi repeats, snapping his fingers in front of Yu’s face to catch the other man’s attention. Yu blinks, attempting to re-rail his train of thought, still dizzy and shaken from his near-death experience. “You’re alive, I’m alive, and I’d rather we both _stay_ that way, so would you terribly mind paying attention to whatever _that_ is?” He gestures at something behind Yu – presumably the dark mass that the silver-haired man had noticed just prior to Seiryu’s dangerous dive. 

Yu turns, looking down the slope of the hill the two men stood upon into a small, bowl-shaped valley. Like every other part of the fogless world, it was beautiful and verdant despite its eerie red shroud, dotted with vibrant wildflowers and patches of lush clover – a beauty that Yu would likely have noticed and appreciated, had the valley not been filled with bizarrely-shaped monsters brutally attacking one another. 

“Shadows,” Yu says coldly. Battle strategies flash through his head, and his mouth is open to dispense orders to his team when he catches himself and remembers that his team isn’t there, that it’s only him and Adachi and Adachi probably wouldn’t listen to any strategy he suggested anyway. For what feels like the hundredth time, the leader without any followers misses his friends terribly. 

“Don’t look like any Shadows _I’ve_ ever seen,” Adachi remarks casually, shading his eyes as he peers down into the valley. “I’d say, O senpai of senpais, that they look more along the lines of Personas.” Apparently not satisfied with the statement, he feels the need to continue. “Weak, pathetic, Personas too – kind of like the ones you and your harem are always flinging around.” 

Yu looks again, really _looks_ this time, forcing himself to examine the scene in the same way that he had forced himself to examine Teddie’s blood. The first thing that he notices is that the figures’ movements are nowhere near as fluid and sinuous as Shadows. The second is that not a single one of the combatants seems to possess the long, spindly black limbs he has come to associate with the hated foes. 

He moves down the hill, figuring that he is still far enough away to avoid the creatures’ notice, bitterly focused as they are on destroying each other. Slowly, the chaotic melee begins to resolve itself into distinct figures – and, as much as he is as loath to admit it as ever, once again, Adachi is right. 

They aren’t Shadows. They’re _Personas_. 

The first one he recognizes is the squat, pumpkin-headed form of Pyro Jack, its lantern sending beams of bright fire in the direction of a tall, floating dancer – Sarasvati. Several Slimes creep along the ground, attempting to trip up a clump of Ghouls and Matadors. Pixies buzz through the chaos, flashes of light emitting from tiny hands as they cast. 

They’re all Personas and, most importantly, they’re all Personas he recognizes, ones he has witnessed Igor create in the Velvet Room, strengthened by the bonds he shares with his friends. In a moment of panic, he turns an inward eye towards that part of his soul where his own vast collection of Personas resides, wondering if they had somehow escaped or gone rogue. But they are still there, all of them, Pixie and Ghoul and Sarasvati and the rest, peacefully awaiting the next time he should summon them. 

The reassurance this provides is only momentary. If his own Personas are still safe within him, then whose are _those_? 

“There must be other Persona users in here, ones we haven’t met and weren’t aware of.” The silver-haired man launches into strategy talk as though the accustomed audience is listening, instead of a single uninterested killer. “And judging by the number and variety down there, it’s either a whole army of them, or they’ve all got the ability to summon multiple Personas like I do.” 

Adachi makes a ‘tsk’ sound with his tongue as he descends the hill to stand beside his ally. His posture is casual, but Yu notes that he holds the blue tarot card tightly in his hand, prepared to crush it at any moment. 

“Look closer, kid. That wasn’t a bad first guess, but take another look before you jump to conclusions.” Yu tries to hide his surprise – was that a _compliment_? Coming from _Adachi_? He attempts to brush it off, attributing it to the high tension of their current situation. 

He looks again, trying desperately to make some sense of the chaos beneath him, to assign some order to the bursts of fire, jagged arcs of lighting and the flashes of various weapons. Finally, he gives up on attempting to distinguish anything and lets his eyes wander to the edges of the battlefield, to the positions that he and his friends would take were they the ones currently fighting. 

He blinks, unable to understand what he’s seeing. 

Blinks again. 

The image has not changed. 

There’s…

“There’s no one there,” he says aloud. Not a single person is present anywhere near the writhing, roiling mass of Personas, save for himself and Adachi. 

Although Yu does not turn his head, he can practically feel the former detective nod beside him. “Bingo,” Adachi says grimly.

“But where could they be hiding? Unless they’re all like Rise and are controlling their Personas from afar or something?” He scans the low hills nearby, eyes straining for any sign of movement. 

“Kid…” Yu realizes that the killer sounds _afraid_ , and the bottom seems to drop out of his own stomach. “I don’t think there are any people around.” 

Gray eyes meet under the harsh red sun, the two men’s minds in perfect accordance with one another for the first time since they first stared each other down from opposite sides of the prison glass. No words are needed as they both come to the same realization – things in the TV World have changed in even greater ways than either man anticipated. 

Yu has fought Shadows, and Adachi has embraced them. They _know_ Shadows. They are confident, even comfortable, with Shadows. They’ve even fought Personas – each other’s – though that fight had more to do with the two men themselves than the deities they commanded. 

But this? Master-less, vicious-eyed, completely independent Personas? 

This is new. 

New, and it seems, unavoidable – just as the thought of backing slowly up the hill had begun to cross Yu’s mind, one of the Matadors turns and fixes him with its gaping eye sockets, yellow light burning harshly from within. Within mere seconds, the entire horde seems to have noticed the human interlopers. 

Neither man looks at the other. There is no time. The battle is upon them. 

They inch further away from one another, realizing for the first time that they have never actually, truly _fought_ beside each other before, unless one was to count the single moment atop Inaba Tartarus, and that had always honestly felt like more of their Personas’ doing than their own. They haven’t talked strategy – Yu too accustomed to his team’s relatively consistent tactics, Adachi too accustomed to hiding and letting others do the actual fighting. Lacking a cohesive plan, they retreated into their own usual styles, not even considering compatibility (or lack thereof). 

“Mangle them, Magatsu-Izanagi!” Adachi yells, and the red Persona appears on the battlefield. 

Knowing that the other man has electricity locked down, Yu brings forth Loki, setting him against the quickly approaching knot of Pyro Jacks. A few blasts of ice handles the offending pumpkin-headed creatures, but they are no sooner defeated than they are replaced with a group of Ghouls. He switches to Surt, quickly switching the tarot card for his sword as one of the creatures gets through the wall of fire and reaches for his face with its long claws. 

As he lands a hit that severs the Ghoul’s arm from its shoulder, he risks a brief glimpse at Adachi. The taller man has picked up a large branch and seems to be using it as a makeshift club, batting at a Pixie hovering around his head, seemingly attempting to scratch out his eyes. Magatsu Izanagi rains bolt after bolt of lightning onto the attacking Personas, before following up with a huge gust of wind, knocking over several foes. 

Yu blinks. Apparently, he hadn’t been as aware of the full range of skills possessed by Adachi’s Persona as he had thought. 

The crowd of Personas slowly shrinks. Adachi’s forehead is slick with sweat and his white shirt (the suit jacket lost and discarded somewhere in the fray) torn, scratched and stained slightly with blood. Yu crushes card after card, forced to constantly cycle through Personas as he defeats each opponent. He thinks with frustration about how quickly this would be over if he had Chie kicking apart Slimes, Naoto shooting Pixies out of the air and Rise shouting advice in his ear – but, reluctantly, he admits that there is no use dwelling in hypotheticals. If there are to be more strange battles with rampaging Personas, he will have to develop some sort of plan for fighting alongside Adachi. 

The crowd of foes does not seem to be shrinking, and Yu can feel his strength flagging. Adachi looks about as beat as Yu feels – and, given the nature of their opponents, the blood on his shirt can only be his own. Yu needs to end this – and fast. 

Still able to envision many situations in which he and his ally end up battling each other once again, Yu is reluctant to reveal one of his most powerful skills to Adachi. But there is no choice. The battle will be lost if he does not act. 

“Adachi!” he shouts, hoping the killer can hear him over the chaotic sounds of battle. “Dismiss him!” He indicates the towering red Persona. 

“What-“ Yu mentally pleads for the other man not to fight him on this. Adachi seems to hear this mental plea, returning Magatsu Izanagi to his card just as Yu crushes a card of his own in his fist. 

A small, pale, blonde-haired girl appears on the battlefield. Her smile is small and serene, but her eyes are cold.

Adachi seems unsurprised by the appearance of the fragile-looking Persona. Instead, he merely crosses his arms over his chest, his trademark smirk on his face. 

“Alice!” Yu shouts. “Die for me!” 

The girl raises a hand, flicking her fingers outward in the direction of the enemy Personas. 

A circle of purple light surrounds them, strange arcana runes glowing within it. For a moment, Yu fears this will not work, that these enemies are stronger than Shadows and will brush off the attack with ease. 

His fears do not become reality. With a small, barely audible “pop”, the entire horde vanishes from existence, leaving Yu, Adachi and the silent, still-smiling Alice alone in the once again peaceful valley. 

The two men once again lock eyes, panting heavily, exhausted and blood-stained. 

“We…” Yu begins. The words catch in his throat. He tries again. “We should probably have a better plan next time.” He tries not to think about the admittance of guilt, the apology that he is broadcasting to Adachi with these words. 

For once, the criminal does not rib him for it. “Yeah,” is all he says. “They’re harder to kill than Shadows.” 

Silence stretches between them, awkward as always. Yu tries again to bridge the gap. “Are….are you hurt?” 

“It’s a scratch,” Adachi tries to scrub the blood from one sleeve of his shirt with the other sleeve. “One of the Matadors got me.”   
“Here,” Yu struggles to keep his voice level as he switches Alice for Ishtar and casts a quick spell. Though the dried blood remains on Adachi’s formerly white shirt, the taller man immediately stands up straighter and stops wincing. 

Another long silence. 

“……….Thanks.” 

Yu nods. 

“We…” he starts. “We should get out of here. The Personas might come back.” 

Adachi does not retort. Instead, he merely points upward. “Despite your little near-death aviatrix stunt earlier, we might be safer up there. Some of these things can fly, but your worm can probably take them.” 

Yu is too tired to argue – and, anyway, it’s a good idea. He crushes yet another card, the muscles in his palm aching from performing the action so many times, and Seiryu reappears before him. Once again, the Persona does not resist as the two men climb aboard, and Yu doesn’t complain when Adachi climbs in front this time. He also doesn’t bring up the fact that the criminal taking the more dangerous seat is almost _nice_ of him. 

For the first part of their journey, Yu scoots back, seating himself as far away from Adachi’s white-clad back as he can be and still feel relatively safe. Eventually, however, the exhaustion of the day’s battle catches up with him, and his eyelids begin to droop. He is desperate for sleep, but too afraid of falling off again to let it claim him. He is not sure if Adachi will save him a second time. 

An internal battle rages within the leader, but finally the need for sleep wins out. He moves the slightest of inches forward, inclining his body so that it rests ever so lightly against the back in front of him. It’s an awkward position, his head and neck resting against Adachi’s back while his hands grasp the Persona’s mane in front of him, but it’s better than nothing. 

As he drifts off, Yu tells himself he does not feel the body in front of him shifting so that his head rests more comfortably and securely against his shoulder.


	6. Interlude: An Irregularity on Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize to anyone who is disappointed in this chapter being an Interlude. I know you're all eager to see what happens next with our boys, but they're not going to get away with their daring escape consequence-free. They're cutely sleeping now and need their rest, but will be back next chapter. In the meanwhile, let's see what's going on on the other side of the TV....

Naoto loved London. 

The pint sized detective strode confidently through the crowded streets, stopping far too often to glance in the wind of an antique bookstore, to observe the outrush of people from a tube station, or merely to stare in childlike excitement at the rapid passing of a bright red double-decker bus. She scarfed down even the bizarrest of foods like it was the most delicious meal she’d ever consumed. She seemed three feet taller as she conversed in near-fluent English with the local police, a small smile ever-present on her face even though it had been days since they’d unearthed any new leads in the theft case she’d been called here to investigate. 

Naoto loved London, and Kanji loved watching her love it.   
Today was a Saturday, and the tall man had exercised his executive authority as official Assistant to the Detective Prince to drag her from yet another of these conversations off to do some sightseeing. She’d put up a token resistance until he’d mentioned two magical words – “Baker Street” – and they were off. 

Kanji’s limited English had kept him from understanding most of what the museum guide was saying, but that was okay – the look of absolute bliss on Naoto’s face was more than worth it. Now, as he watches his girlfriend debate between a floppy brown hat and a curved black pipe in the gift shop (though she surely knows he’d end up buying her both) Kanji hopes fervently that nothing would ruin this trip for them. 

Less than a minute later, his hopes are thoroughly dashed as her phone rings. 

It was not her “work phone” - the boxy, impossibly loud one which had been lent to her for the duration of their stay by one of the British detectives – but her private one, a slim Junes-bought thing laden with small knitted charms, the number of which only a select few people knew. That it was ringing at all meant that something serious was happening, something which would almost surely fit Kanji’s definition of “ruining their trip”. 

“Shirogane speaking. No, sir, I have time.” As she listens to whomever was on the other line, her face grows gradually more serious, contrasting sharply with the rather silly hat still perched on her head. Kanji’s heart fell along with her smile. 

“Yes, sir, I understand,” the detective says finally, her tone clipped and distant. “No, this takes precedence. The London police will understand.” With a swift _click,_ she ends the call. 

Naoto looks at Kanji. Kanji looks at Naoto. Silence stretches between them. “What was that about?” the former delinquent finally manages to ask. 

“That was Detective Dojima. There’s been an incident at one of the prefectural prisons. A prisoner escaped during visiting hours several days ago, and the guards haven’t been able to identify a means of egress from the facility.” 

Rage boils within Kanji, intensifying with each stress line that appears between Naoto’s eyes. “What’s that got to do with us?” he demands. “Old man Dojima’s a perfectly good detective, and if it’s the prefectural prison I’m sure there’s tons of other detectives they can call on who aren’t halfway around the world working on a case!” 

Naoto lays a calming hand on his shoulder, though her partner can see that the knuckles on her other hand, which still grasps her now-silent cell phone, are white with strain. “It’s got everything to do with us, Kanji.” Her voice shakes almost imperceptibly. “The escaped prisoner was Adachi. And he went missing while he had a visitor – a young man who identified himself to the guard as Detective Dojima’s nephew.” 

The world spins. Kanji staggers, catching himself on a rack of kitschy phone cases (each a different shade of eye-blinding neon and reading DON’T CRACK _THIS_ CASE in enormous letters). He opens his mouth to speak, but a weak, quiet “Shit” is all that comes out. 

“I don’t understand.” Naoto taps her chin, pacing in the narrow space between a rack of pipe-smoking teddy bears and one of DVDs with a long-faced man glaring on the cover. “Yu-senpai’s actions in this situation are incredibly inconsistent.” 

Without thinking, Kanji slams his fist against one of the racks, sending the DVDs with the odd-looking man cascading to the floor. The brown-hatted saleslady glares at him, but he takes no notice. “Of course they were inconsistent! Adachi-san manipulated him into going to that prison, and kidnapped him!” 

Naoto shakes her head, stepping around the employee who had appeared as if from nowhere to clean up the scattered DVDs. “The facts don’t add up. Adachi-san is a prisoner. He wouldn’t have access to any phones or computers – no way of getting in touch with senpai to manipulate him in the first place. And given that he insisted he told the guards the whole truth, it’s logical that he also would not have access to TVs, therefore removing that avenue of contact.” 

The former delinquent crosses his arms. “So you’re saying Senpai just decided to walk in one day and free Adachi-san? Why? How?” 

“I don’t know,” the detective admits, allowing her head to sag. Kanji moves towards his girlfriend, wrapping a protective arm around her petite frame. “But it seems like that has to be the case. Kanji, there…there’s something I didn’t tell you.” 

Her partner’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” 

She continues in a small, defeated voice. “A few days ago, Yu-senpai attempted to call me several times. It was just following the most recent theft, so I spent the entire night working. The next days were so hectic I never called back.” 

Kanji nods, remembering the multiple mornings he’d woken up alone recently. That had been the reason why he’d dragged Naoto away from her desk today. “Do you reckon him calling you had anything to do with….whatever’s going on?” 

“I see no other alternative,” the Detective Prince concludes. “Taking time differences into account, he called me less than a day before Adachi-san was reported missing. I’ll call the others to confirm, but I’m almost certain they have similar ‘missed call’ messages on their phones from around the same time.” 

She leans her head against the protective warmth of Kanji’s shoulder, allowing her boyfriend’s strong presence to give her the little comfort I can. “Kanji?” she asks softly, after a long silence.

“Yes?” 

“I…I think I’ve made a grave mistake.” She stares at the phone in her hand, as if willing it to ring, willing their leader to call and tell them that everything was going to be alright after all. 

“We both have,” says Kanji firmly. “But we can fix it. It’s not too late to help Senpai. It _can’t_ be.” 

Naoto smiles at him, small and wan. “It can’t be,” she echoes. She removes her head from her shoulder, but keeps her small hand in his larger, rougher one. Hands still linked, the couple exits the gift shop at a near-run, ignoring the fading cries of “Miss, are you going to buy that hat...?” from the distraught saleslady.


	7. Mounting Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I write things that make me mad that I can't draw. The hair-cutting scene in this chapter is one of those times.

Yu dreams in fragments, as confused as his waking thoughts and emotions have been lately. _He sees Naoto’s face, her usually resolute gaze replaced by a mask of pure despair….He hears Rise’s voice in his ear, but it fades in and out, and he discerns no words before she fades into static…_

_….Again and again he faces the snarling, vicious Personas in the valley. In the dreams the Team fights beside him. He sees a Slime pull Chie’s legs out from under her, a Matador run Yosuke through in a single motion, but when he hears a cry and turns to the side, the one bent double with the blood seeping through his shirt is always Adachi, Adachi, Adachi…._

_…Something hovers above the battlefield, something vast and winged and dark, terribly, horrifically dark. Before he can look up to behold its true form, it knocks his feet out from under him. Though a moment ago he was standing solid on the ground of the valley, he is falling….falling…_

Yu wakes with a jolt, a swooping sensation in his stomach, certain that he is once again about to tumble from Seiryu’s back into empty air. Out of reflex, he grabs the solid form in front of him to stay his fall. His breath comes in nervous pants as he clutches whatever stable thing his arms have found. Terrified that even the act of looking down will throw off his balance, he buries his face in the warmth of his lifeline. 

The thing he is clinging to reveals itself to be a human body as it stiffens in shock. “Good….morning.” The man turns to face Yu. “Not…not that I don’t _enjoy_ being your security blanket, but would you mind allowing me to _breathe_?” 

Shame instantly fills Yu as, with a nearly audible _snap,_ the last vestiges of the dream vanish and he realizes that he is tightly embracing Tohru Adachi. 

He releases the other man immediately, scooting as far back as he feels comfortable without losing his seat and sliding down the dragon’s tail. Unfortunately, due to their current situation, the movement only puts a few inches between himself and Adachi. 

“I just didn’t want to fall…” he stammers out, knowing how lame it sounds. “I mean, you already did your one good deed for all eternity when you pulled me up earlier.” He tries to weasel his way out of the situation by throwing Adachi’s own previous actions back in the criminal’s face. 

A tinge of red manifests at the tops of the killer’s cheeks. “I told you, if you fall off this thing and die, you take me with you. That’s all.” 

Yu can feel his embarrassed blush deepening. “Well, you don’t have to worry about me using you as a ‘security blanket again. You _reek_.” Once again, the silver-haired leader recognizes and utterly detests how outmatched he is by Adachi in anything involving snark or wits. 

“Well, _yeah_ ” the convict retorts. “It’s not like prisons are exactly known to be shining examples of personal hygiene facilities. You considered yourself lucky if you found less than five spiders in the shower.”   
Yu shudders. He knows Adachi is likely exaggerating to get a reaction out of him, but he can’t help it. That’s gross. 

Awkward-as-ever silence begins to stretch between them, but this time the escaped prisoner doesn’t let it last. “You make a good point though, kid. This blood on my shirt could attract more of them.” He doesn’t specify who ‘them’ is – he doesn’t need to. “Let’s find somewhere to clean off.” 

Seiryu begins to descend, slowly this time, as if even the Persona itself is in agreement with Adachi’s plan. Feeling horribly out of control of the entire situation, Yu simply sits there, hands wrapped in the dragon’s thick mane, making carefully certain that not a single part of his body is coming into the slightest bit of contact with a single part of Adachi’s. After a blessedly smooth descent, with neither man in danger of falling, the dragon Persona alights next to a small but merrily bubbling stream. 

Despite neither man giving it any direction, the location the Persona has chosen is perfect for their intended purpose. The stream is wide and seemingly deep enough to bathe in without being either swift or rocky (though its eerie red-tinted waters, the product of the eternal bizarre sun, look admittedly less than inviting). A stand of trees protects them from inquisitive eyes – or would, if anyone else inhabited this world with them. Right now, the only beings they seemed to have any chance of encountering were more rogue Personas, and if that happened, it wouldn’t be peeping that they were worried about. 

The dragon safely returned to its card, the two allies stand facing one another, arms crossed and matching looks of mistrust on their faces. Both Yu and Adachi quickly realize the flaw in their plan – cleaning off would require stripping down in front of the other. The shame of being seen nude by the other is eclipsed by the necessity of having to leave all weapons, tarot cards included, on the bank. Neither is quite willing to make the first step towards such total vulnerability. 

As he did in their first confrontation, when he had briefly surrendered Magatsu Izanagi’s card to Yu’s keeping, it is Adachi who takes the first step. Eyes still locked with Yu’s, he unbuttons his stained shirt in a quick, businesslike manner, exposing a narrow, lean-muscled chest liberally patterned with faded bruises and faint scars. Yu may have healed him after the fight earlier, but the marks of his less-than-easy life in prison will take more than a simple Dia spell to banish. He nonchalantly deposits the blood-smeared bundle on the ground next to their bags. 

When Yu makes no move to turn away, the criminal clears his throat. The silver-haired leader arches an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m going to turn my unguarded back to you?” he snaps. “We’ve established that you think I’m an idiot, but clearly I’m not _quite_ as dumb as you think” 

Adachi smiles momentarily, an expression of something like pride in his eyes – rather than being stung by Yu’s words, he’s _enjoying_ them, _appreciating_ that his ally is learning how to fling verbal barbs at his level. “Idiot was only my second guess,” he retorts. “First was an overwhelming desire to stare at me naked.” 

At this, Yu flushes Yukiko-sweater-red and turns, attempting to hide his embarrassment by quickly unbuttoning his own shirt. His fingers, shaking with rage at the mere suggestion of any attraction to Adachi, fumble with each button. By the time he has his shirt off, he hears a distinct _splash_ indicating that the convict has successfully disrobed and entered the water. 

Reluctantly, Yu removes his sword and lays it next to Adachi’s discarded clothes, but he waits, refusing to continue stripping while he may be being watched. 

An exasperated sigh echoes from the stream behind him. “Go ahead, I’m not looking.” Shivering in the constant evening chill, Yu quickly disrobes and steps into the stream. Luckily, the water is warm, and the current is not strong, allowing him to keep his footing with ease. Not caring that he is likely making enough noise to be heard from miles away, the silver-haired man rapidly shuffle-walks through the water to the center of the stream. Thankfully, the water comes up to his mid-chest, easily hiding anything he wished to keep hidden from Adachi’s view. 

He doesn’t have anything to clean off with – there might be a bar of soap in one of their bags, but he refuses to risk exiting the water naked to rummage around for it – so he dunks his head and begins to finger-comb his damp silver hair to the best of his ability. Adachi is showing a surprisingly inventive side, using a handful of sand from the bottom of the stream to furiously scrub at his stained shirt. 

For several moments, Yu becomes lost in the familiar rhythms of cleaning his body. He sinks down until he is nearly kneeling on the sandy bank, small waves just brushing against his chin. He closes his eyes, the exhaustion of their journey’s frantic pace hitting him for the first time. Although he’s taken advantage of a few opportunities to sleep, most recently atop Seiryuu’s back, they have been far from the restful hours he needs. The constant tension he feels in his every muscle simply from being in Adachi’s presence isn’t helping either. He tries to let his thoughts drift as his body does the same, hoping to get the convict off his mind for at least a little while. 

A wordless, unnecessarily loud _tch_ of frustration comes from somewhere off to his right, foiling Yu’s efforts to forget that he was not alone in the river. He turns his head to see Adachi stretching his now-clean shirt against a rock with one hand and pushing the fringe of his hair out of his eyes with the other. 

“We’re not allowed any sharp objects, so of course we’re not allowed to cut our own hair,” Adachi must have somehow sensed Yu’s eyes on him, because the commentary is obviously directed at the silver-haired man. “There’s a barber who’s supposed to come in once a month, but he’s a no-good drunk and always forgets. I think it must have been three or four months since he’s shown up – not that it really matters. He can’t even hold the scissors straight.” 

Silence falls again as Adachi unsuccessfully tries to stop his hair from falling back over his eyes. Yu is surprised to notice how long the other man’s hair has become. He’d vaguely taken note of it back at the prison, when he’d first come face to face with Adachi, but the detail hadn’t really stuck in his mind. Back in Inaba, the former detective had always kept his hair rather short, if a little scruffy from infrequent combing. Now, it’s grown into a shaggy, dark mane similar in length to Yosuke’s, if not even longer. 

Adachi sighs heavily, apparently giving up. “You got scissors anywhere in any of those bags?” At the shake of Yu’s head, he continues. “A knife, then?” 

Yu hesitates. That, he does have, in the form of a multi-tool he had bought on a whim once at Junes. When Dojima had seen it in his shopping bag and asked him pointed questions, he’d muttered something about how late he came home from his part-time job at the hospital paired with the fact that there was an un-apprehended murderer around. Sitting in his room later, mindlessly flipping open the blade, corkscrew and nail file which the tool contained, he’d understood the reason behind his purchase – a substitute, however small, for the increasingly familiar weight of a sword hooked on his belt or resting against his shoulders. 

Correctly interpreting Yu’s silence as a yes, the convict inquires as to the location of said knife, and Yu finds himself answering automatically, before he can catch himself and realize he probably shouldn’t be giving Adachi the location of anything remotely able to be used as a weapon. 

In a flash, Adachi’s out of the water, heading to the bank and rummaging through the bag Yu had accidentally indicated. Yu moves to stop him, to wrestle the object away from him if necessary, but just as quickly halts as though some invisible force has caught him. Several separate facts in his brain connect and converge as though lightning-charged, the situation part ridiculous, part dangerous, all embarrassing. 

One, Adachi now has a weapon – a small one, but a weapon nonetheless – and he has none, not even his tarot cards. 

Two, between them is not ground but sand, rocks and the bank: slippery, likely treacherous. Not a good spot for a fight even if he was dry and shod, and he is neither. 

Three, Adachi is standing on the bank, completely naked and apparently unashamed of that fact. 

Yu is pretty sure he does not want a naked, multitool-wielding Tohru Adachi to be the last thing he sees before he dies.

So, the ever cool, calm and collected leader responds to the situation in absolutely the most mature, sensible, rational way possible: he squeezes his eyes shut and desperately pretends that he did _not_ just see that, that that image _isn’t_ going to be permanently burned into his mind. 

He hears splashing, prepares himself for the cool press of a blade against his throat or a cruel file-tip pricking the skin above his heart. Neither situation comes to pass, and the red-flushed Yu finally manages to open his eyes, hoping that Adachi had at least had the decency to step into waist-deep water before killing him. 

The man behind the Inaba killings stands in front of him, one hand held out towards Yu, palm raised. The multitool sits atop it like an offering. 

“What?” Yu croaks less than eloquently. 

Adachi shrugs his pale, narrow shoulders. When he speaks, there is none of his usual smugness. “There’s…not a mirror or anything around, and I don’t want to mess it up.” 

Yu says nothing, still struggling to process the situation unfolding around him. Adachi sighs again, and the silver-haired leader can read the look on his face as easily as if he had been one of his own teammates: _Are you really going to make me say it?_

The criminal stretches his hand further, offering the small item more insistently. In a small, uncharacteristically vulnerable voice, he asks: 

“Will you help me?” 

Yu finds that his mouth has suddenly become devoid of moisture. He nods numbly, thinking only of getting the knife away from Adachi. Once the tool is in his hand, he stares at it wordlessly for several more seconds before finally managing to squeak out. “Uh…turn around, I guess?” 

He’s never cut anyone’s hair before, but he’s brushed and styled Nanako’s. He figures it can’t be _that_ much different, can it? He selects a lock of black hair, holds it in his left hand while awkwardly maneuvering the knife into position with the other. The incessant shaking of his hands causes the back of the knife to brush against Adachi’s neck.

The criminal jumps slightly as the cool metal touches his sensitive skin, and for a moment Yu worries that he has cut him. When he sees there is no blood, he continues cutting. It’s a slow process – Adachi’s hair is shaggy and tangled – and his hands are far from steady. The back of the knife comes into contact with Adachi’s neck several more times and, with each brush of metal on skin, Yu can feel the other man shiver. 

The process continues, neither man speaking a word. Black hair falls like bizarre leaves into the stream, carried to some faraway, unknown destination. With each contact, soft and brief like a steel-flesh kiss, Yu begins to realize something: he has the other man completely at his mercy. The killer is unarmed, his back turned towards Yu and his gray eyes closed to keep the falling locks out of his eyes. If the silver-haired leader so desired, he could wrap a muscular arm around Adachi’s neck and squeeze the life from him, or draw a red line across that pale throat with the tip of his blade. 

Tohru Adachi has allowed himself to be completely vulnerable in front of Yu Narukami.

Tohru Adachi _trusts_ Yu Narukami. 

Yu Narukami does not know how to feel about that. 

The entire situation seems surreal. Yu can almost convince himself that the breath that speeds up is not his own, that it is a stranger’s hands which brush the fringe out of Adachi’s eyes with something that is almost tenderness. If it were really _him_ doing these things, he reasons, he would be driving the blade-tip into those grey eyes, not dampening his free hand in the stream and gently wiping the fallen hairs away from the closed lids and wide forehead. He cannot be truly here, truly present in this situation, because there is no way on Earth he would notice that his chest has come to rest against Adachi’s shoulder to maintain balance, would not note almost offhandedly that the killer’s formerly ice-cold skin has become nearly as flushed and heated as his own. 

After what seems like an eternity, the process is complete. The cuts are far from even, but Adachi’s hair has returned to at least a semblance of its former appearance. At least, it will no longer fall into his eyes and pose a potential danger in future battles. 

“Th…there you go,” Yu says quietly, breaking the long silence with an uneven voice. Adachi opens his eyes, and though he does not smile, his face bears an expression that Yu would describe as _contentment_. 

“Thank you,” he says. Only that, minus any snarky follow-up or add-on.   
The two men sit in the river, eyes locked, still unclothed, the last pieces of shorn hair floating away between them. Each man’s breath is rapid and ragged, each man’s skin is flushed and hot. Though neither has the words to articulate it, both know that what just occurred has irrevocably changed things between them. 

As always, it is Adachi who takes the first plunge. “That was…” he begins, softly, his voice full of something that Yu does not want to admit is gentleness. 

Yu never gets to find out what “that” had been, for at that moment, the eerie red light darkens as though night has fallen. Startled out of his reverie, Yu looks up. Above them hovers a dark, winged figure, filling the sky like something out of a half-remembered nightmare.


	8. Snap Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long hiatus. NaNoWriMo took up all my time and inspiration for the past month. Updates should be more regular from now on!

For a long, terrible moment, Yu is frozen, eyes fixed on the nightmare-creature as it descends. It’s too high up, too obscured by the dim red light to see clearly, but the mere sight of it fills his body with an icy dread worse than anything Izanami’s rotting flesh had inspired. 

His companion, luckily, does not experience a similar panic state. “Get down!” Adachi shouts. His wiry arm collides with Yu’s back, all thoughts of propriety and their mutual nakedness forgotten. He pushes Yu to the ground, shielding both of their heads with their discarded clothing. 

A cry echoes through the TV world, something like the throaty yarp of a crow amplified via billions of speakers at once. Yu crowds closer to Adachi, the rational part of his brain refusing to process that he’s grateful rather than repulsed that his last living moments will be spent with the Inaba serial killer. 

But the expected sharp whistle of air as the creature dives toward them never comes. Neither does the feel of vaguely avian claws digging into his back, ripping organs from their accustomed places with their vicious, serrated hooks. There is only shallow, terrified breaths and the uncomfortable stink of fear-sweat dripping from both men’s still unclothed shoulders. 

Once his breathing has returned mostly to normal, Yu pushes himself away from Adachi, trying to seem disgusted but internally acknowledging that his reaction had been far too delayed as to be convincing in that regard. He peers into the sky, shading his eyes against the red sun, still perched on the lip of the horizon like some bloody, mutated egg. 

The thing is gone. 

His sigh of relief is cut short by another of Adachi’s standard lazy, biting remarks. “Typical, kid. Too busy birdwatching to notice the imminent death right in front of you.”

“Pretty sure that thing wasn’t a bird,” Yu retorts, knowing how lame the comeback sounds. After the events in the river, it’s gotten even harder to think straight around Adachi. He mentally insists that the pulse pounding insistently in his ears and the heat rising to his cheeks are the result of terror. He fails to convince himself. 

The silver-haired man looks in the direction Adachi’s finger indicates. Indeed, the criminal had not been lying. Whatever nightmare bird-demon-thing had lurked above them was no longer their most immediate concern. 

It was the veritable army of Personas advancing towards them which posed a far greater danger. 

The previous Persona fight had been bad. They were strong, about equivalent with the Shadows which had lurked in Izanami’s red sky-kingdom. Adachi had been hurt, and it had been sheer luck that Yu had had enough energy left to heal him properly. 

The last batch of Personas had been strong, but these were _stronger_. 

It is no mere Pixies or Matadors that approach them now. A gang of Hell Bikers revs their engines as they speed past the more sedate cluster of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Yu swears he catches a glimpse of Alice’s signature pale blue dress behind the stately form of Kali. And striding purposefully at the head of the army are four massive figures that seem to spell out certain death for the two hapless men. Surt brandishes a torch in each hand. The tip of Odin’s staff swirls with living winds. The sky over Thor crackles with lightning as the ground freezes under Loki’s feet. 

“Kid,” Adachi whispers, being completely serious for once. “I think we’d better put on some pants.” 

Yu feels a bit ridiculous spending the last few minutes before the army descends upon them hurriedly pulling on clothes, reaching over Adachi to grab at a shoe as the other man scrabbles through the dirt to locate a sock. They mutter half-formed plans to each other as they dress swifter than two illicit lovers caught by a suspicious wife. 

“We should have planned for this. We knew it would happen again.” 

“I think that’s rather your fault, O Great Leader. You’re the one who always feels like he needs to be in charge.” 

“Is this really the time?” 

Frustrated breath hisses out from between Adachi’s clenched teeth. “What I mean is….your plans are solid. You’ve got more experience leading in these sorts of situations than I do. So tell me what you’ve got and I…I’ll listen.” 

In a less desperate situation, Yu might have ribbed Adachi about how much it must have hurt to admit that. Instead, he merely spills out words a mile a minute, desperately trying to formulate something resembling a combat strategy. 

“We’ve got to get the Norse ones – those four at the front – taken out first. They’re the leaders, and they’re the strongest. Between them, they’ve got all four of the main elements locked down, so we need to separate them. You take Loki and Surt – your lightning and wind will actually stand a chance against them – which leaves Odin and Thor to me. And if you see any little girls in blue dresses…run. Run as far and as fast as you can.” 

Adachi nods. Silence does not spread between them – it has no time to do so. As the army advances close enough that they can smell the smoke from Surt’s torches burning their nostrils, the criminal asks one last question in an unusually small, subdued voice. 

“So, this is it, huh?” 

Yu nods. He doesn’t need to say anything else.

“Well,” Adachi continues, still in that same strangely small voice. “I suppose I ought to thank you, then.” 

Yu quirks a confused eyebrow in the direction of the man he is about to die beside. He’s not quite sure why Adachi would be thanking him – he wouldn’t be here about to lose his life had Yu not come to spirit him away from prison. 

“I…it’s better to go out here than rot in that place forever,” the criminal admits. “At least I got to do something right before I kicked it.” 

Yu does not have time to process that admission, because the battle is upon them. Izanagi looms large on his left, Adachi smaller but no less resolute on his right. The leader raises a hand in the direction of the torch-wielding god and issues a single command. 

“Izanagi, Ziodyne!” 

The attack is nowhere near enough to maim or even hurt Surt, but it causes the large, topheavy Persona to stumble, knocking into Loki on his left and separating them ever so slightly from the other two Norse deities. Quick as the lightning he commands, Magatsu Izanagi is in the gap, forcing them apart, splitting their forces exactly as Yu had outlined in his plan. 

In their last battle, Yu had felt cripplingly alone, commands on the tip of his tongue outlining strategies for Personas whose wielders were not present. This time, it feels as though he has more than a single ally with him. The crimson Persona’s winds scatter enemies, sending them staggering about, and its flashes of lightning blind and scar them. At first, Yu is unable to figure out what exactly has changed, and then he realizes it – he is allowing himself to rely on the resources he has, meaning Adachi, rather than longing constantly for his absent friends. 

This new cooperation does not, unfortunately, make the battle any easier. Yu cycles through Personas faster than he can remember doing, and though a couple well-placed blasts of wind cause the enemy Thor to fade away, even the defeat of one Norse god is not enough to turn the tides. Though the strokes of his sword do not decrease in accuracy, nor the shout of his commands in volume, despair fills Yu as he admits to himself that there really is no getting out of this one. 

Even Die for Me, the last-ditch spell that had saved them in the nick of time during the last battle, is less than effective. Sure, it thins the horde a little, but most of the Personas present have strong enough Dark resistance that they are completely unaffected. Luckily, Yu the enemy Alice Yu had seen – or thought he’d seen – hadn’t pulled out that attack yet herself. He didn’t have any faith in his or Adachi’s ability to survive it. 

Yu ducks and spins, dodging underneath an arc of lightning. The field is so chaotic he can’t even tell which Persona the attack originated from. His sword connects wetly with flesh, though he cannot see what he hit. His back collides with something solid and reassuring. Another back. A human one: Adachi. 

“What’s with you today, kid?” the former cop pants. “I know you’ve got stronger ones. Why are you holding back?” Again, Adachi displays surprising knowledge of Yu’s arsenal of Personas – more than he should know from the one time the two men had fought. 

He doesn’t want to admit it, not to Adachi. But the killer is again right. Yu has been avoiding pulling out any of the Personas that represent the friends he made in Inaba. Scared that distance and time have weakened his abilities to command them. Scared that Naoto’s away message and Yosuke’s crush on a girl from work meant something final, a dull knife hacking through the carefully nurtured bonds. 

Scared that he’ll reach for them and find only a void. 

The comforting back is gone, Adachi swept away by the chaotic tide of combat. Yu finds himself in a lull, a momentary eye in the hurricane of deathly battle. He looks down at his hand, empty of any tarot card. Doubt consumes him. 

_What if?_

Yu Narukami’s bonds are his power. What is he without them? 

A far-too-human shout rouses him from stupor. The remaining Hell Bikers have surrounded Adachi – an Adachi defenseless, weaponless, thanks to Yu’s mistrust. Magatsu Izanagi brings his massive sword down on skull after skull, but the flame-wreathed Personas merely shrug off each blow. 

“Kid…Yu!” the man screams, barely audible over the rev of engines. 

Yu shoves his doubts into the darkest corner of his soul. He draws on the absent Teddie’s infallible optimism, imagining the bear alive and unharmed. He reaches, and despite the miles and pain between them, the Persona responds as it always has.

“Helel, Morning Star!” 

The Bikers crumble into dust. Bathed in Helel’s light, the two men exchange weary glad-to-be-alive grins. Adachi looks like he’s about to make one of his usual sarcastic quips, but the enemy Odin sends a funnel of wind into the gap between them and he returns instead to the battle at hand. 

His temporary mental block gone, Yu dives into the combat with renewed energy. Instead of feeling abandoned by his absent friends, he feels bolstered, their strength joining his as he summons their associated Persona. Mada’s multiple arms toss enemies aside as though they weigh nothing. Futsunushi’s swords are bathed in the eerie sun’s bloodred light. Norn plows through three Fates, and Yu cannot help but laugh slightly at the irony of it. He allows himself a moment to catch his breath in the protective shade of Sraosha’s wings, and feels Nanako’s love as clearly as if she is there beside him. 

For a brief, blissful moment, it seems as though they are actually going to pull through this. The silver-haired leader summons Ishtar, feeling a rush of renewed energy through his battered body. He stands up a little straighter, feeling like they have a chance of victory for the first time since they had seen the army advancing across the red-stained grass. 

And then Kali is charging at him with inhuman speed, a wicked blade clutched in every arm, and he doesn’t have time to summon a Persona that could stand against her. He backs up two steps, three, four, then trips over something large and lumpy on the ground, landing firmly on his back mere feet from the edge of the stream. 

He can see Adachi, to his left and slightly in front of him. Before he even locks eyes with the other man, Magatsu-Izanagi is locking swords with the multi-armed Persona. Yu attempts to use his moment of safety to clamber back to his feet – but he is stopped by the silent, staring eyes of a tiny, pale girl in a blue dress. 

Alice stands above him, one hand stretched out in front of her slight body, a position he recognizes easily as preparation for casting her most deadly spell. 

_This is it,_ Yu thinks. He has no time to summon another Persona to replace Ishtar, Magatsu-Izanagi is still fighting, and Adachi is unarmed. The certainty of his own doom sits in his stomach like a ball of lead. He prepares to close his eyes and hope for as little pain as possible…

…and then he sees what he has tripped over. One of their bags, carelessly abandoned when they had entered the water. More specifically, the Junes bag that Yu himself had been carrying – the bag which contains the one item that might just save his life. 

Could save it, only to just as easily end it right after. Can he really do this? Does he have a choice? 

Memories flash in front of his eyes – Adachi handing him his tarot card, Adachi holding the multitool in his upraised palm, Adachi shyly asking for help cutting his hair. 

Adachi trusting him. 

Yu takes a deep breath and finally allows himself to trust in return. 

Hastened by fear, he reaches blindly into the bag. By pure luck, his fingers close immediately around the gun. “Tohru, _catch_!” he shouts as he lobs the weapon in Adachi’s direction. 

For a moment, it seems as though Adachi will catch it. The criminal stretches his lean arms, long fingers brushing against cool metal…

…and one of Kali’s arms not occupied with the attacking Magatsu-Izanagi shoots out, knocking the gun from the air and onto the ground, where it rolls out of Adachi’s grasp. 

Yu can see the beginnings of syllables forming on Alice’s lips. His last chance gone, he tries his best to calm his racing pulse and accept his fate. He thinks _at least Adachi knows where the exit is, hopefully he can get out of here alright._

He closes his eyes. 

He hears a ragged, familiar voice shouting from his left. 

“Persona, Daisoujou!” 

He feels no pain. His body remains remarkably whole. And the burbling of the still clearly audible stream seems to indicate that he has not simply vanished into whatever oblivion Dark spells lead to. 

“Daisoujou, Samsara!” 

Yu dares to open his eyes. A familiar skeletal figure now occupies the space between his prone body and Alice’s tiny form. The Persona raises its withered hands, and light covers the battlefield. Yu shields his eyes from the blinding brilliance. 

Once he has stopped seeing stars, the exhausted man finally registers that the enemy Personas have vanished. All that remain are Daisoujou and his own Ishtar. For a moment, he focuses on catching his breath and attempting to puzzle out what happened. Where had the other Persona come from? And for that matter, where had Magatsu-Izanagi gone? 

A body slumps down beside him. Yu turns to see Adachi, exhausted, sweat- and blood-stained but uninjured. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall together. 

Adachi turns to him, a look of pure, reverent wonder on his face. He holds out his hands, palms cupped together to form a shallow bowl. The imposing form of Daisoujou vanishes, and a tiny Pixie hovers lightly in Adachi’s hands. 

“Yu,” he whispers simply, “Yu, look. _It came back_.”


	9. Simple Moment

Yu blinks slowly, attempting to simultaneously catch his breath, recover from the near-death experience, and process whatever it is that Adachi is saying to him. Entirely too much has happened in the past few minutes, and the usually sharp leader is forced to admit that he is completely lost. 

The last thing he remembers with any clarity is Alice’s outstretched hand, and the knowledge that he was about to die. But then a Persona…a Persona he hadn’t had time to summon, a Persona he hadn’t even really been thinking about…had appeared and miraculously destroyed the opposing army. And Adachi…

The silver-haired man turns to observe his companion, despite the creaking protest of multiple overextended muscles. Adachi is sitting quietly beside him, every bit of his attention focused on the tiny, winged Persona in front of him. Pixie flutters in front of the former detective’s face, delicately alighting on the tips of his outstretched fingers. Said face is wreathed in the largest smile Yu has ever seen him wear, and there’s something in his eyes that at first the leader fails to recognize. Then it hits him with all the force of a Ziodyne to the chest: Tohru Adachi, the man who had put so much effort into twisting the rules of the world beyond recognition, is looking at the miniscule winged woman with _reverence_. 

That’s strange, Yu realizes. He has no more memory of summoning Pixie than he does of summoning Daisoujou during the battle. Perhaps he had been subconsciously thinking about his and Adachi’s injuries, though those would require more than the simple Dia spell that Pixie provided. He stretches out his protesting left hand towards Adachi and the Persona, intending to trade Pixie for Ishtar. 

Nothing happens. 

He wiggles his fingers, picturing Ishtar in his mind, visualizing the Lovers tarot card in his hand. Nothing continues to happen, and Yu briefly panics, wondering if he had overextended himself so badly in the battle as to leave him too weak to command his Personas. 

And then _Adachi_ makes a hand movement of his own, a tarot card appearing in his long-fingered hand. In a small shower of sparkles, Pixie fades away. A moment later, the familiar form of Magatsu-Izanagi looms over the two men. 

Yu stares. His words fail him. Can he truly be seeing this? 

Adachi turns, his joy-filled eyes meeting Yu’s exhausted ones. No longer fixated on the Persona in front of him, the other man seems to notice Yu’s presence for the first time. The bizarre situation does nothing to resolve itself into something more comprehensible as, instead of mocking or teasing him, Adachi throws his arms around Yu, enveloping the smaller man in a tight embrace. 

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Adachi babbles. “It _worked_ I was certain it wasn’t going to but it did, it worked and you’re _okay_ ”. Yu briefly allows himself to lean into the comfort of the embrace, awkwardly patting the former detective on the shoulder. Adachi soon seems to come to his senses and scoots away, restoring the physical distance between them, though he continues to shoot furtive looks at Yu as if to ensure that the other man is truly alive. 

“What happened?” Yu finally asks. He’s not sure any explanation Adachi can provide can make any further sense of the bizarre string of occurrences, but the criminal does seem to have a better grasp on what exactly is going on than he himself does. 

“You were going to die,” Adachi responds, and the Investigation Team’s leader cannot pretend that he doesn’t hear grief and fear straining his companion’s voice. “You were going to die and Magatsu-Izanagi was worthless against that bitch, and I…” He falters, sounding nervous. Yu hates how much this conversation is practically forcing him to acknowledge the raw humanity within Adachi. Will he ever be able to go back to seeing him as only a killer, when he has proved himself time and again to be so much more? 

“And I saw Dojima-san’s face in my mind,” Adachi finally continues, his voice small, his eyes averted. The sheer _vulnerability_ he is displaying makes Yu’s cheeks flush and heart throb. The leader’s mind draws a strange connection with their experience in the river – the way the blade of the knife would brush lightly across the sensitive skin of Adachi’s neck and Adachi would shiver involuntarily, constantly aware of how the tool was mere inches away from slicing through his jugular vein. 

“I saw Dojima-san, and he was shouting at me, telling me that if I let you die he’d never forgive me, and I was confused because I…well I’ve already done some pretty unforgivable things, and he still comes to visit me regardless. But I thought about Dojima-san and wished I had something that could cast a Light spell to counter that Dark shit the bitch was using, and I…” He falters again. Yu says nothing, letting the silence stretch, letting Adachi take the time he needs to get the words out. The convict finally seems to settle on the appropriate words. “I just somehow knew that I could do it again if I tried, and I did, and….and it worked.” 

As Yu had dismally predicted, Adachi’s explanation leaves him with rather more questions than answers. He tries his best to imagine them in the Investigation Room at the station, Naoto beside him. _She_ would know the right questions to ask to get the answers he needed from the criminal. 

_Focus on his words_ the Naoto in his mind says. _What seemed the most strange or out of place to you?_

Finally, he picks up on what exactly about Adachi’s explanation had bothered him so much. “You said…again?” the silver-haired man asks hesitantly. “That you ‘knew you could do it again’ if you tried?” 

Adachi laughs, a hollow, exhausted laugh. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag, then, kid.” The corner of his mouth twists up wickedly, having recognized some hidden irony in the statement that Yu did not understand. “My boredom and anger at the world probably wasn’t the only thing Izanami saw when she rummaged around in my head and decided to shake my hand.” 

“You mean…” Yu is incredulous. He knows that he’s not the only person in the world to have ever had command over multiple Personas – the Shadow Operatives had once had one like him, Mitsuru-san had said – but _Adachi_ of all people? 

“Yeah. I was like you when I was younger. I mean,” the usual smirk is back on his face, though his mockery sounds strained, as though his heart just isn’t in it. “I had the same power as you. I was never a compulsive do-gooder with a sister complex.” For once, Yu just lets the retort slide, eager despite himself to hear more about Adachi’s previously unknown past. 

“Before you ask, I don’t know how I got it. My crew and I, we were never into all that ‘truth-seeking’ bullshit like you and your dykes and your whores. They had one Persona each, like your little harem, and I had all of them, so I was the leader. And we used them however we pleased. We played pranks and caused chaos and I suppose sometimes we fought monsters, but only when we felt like it. And then one day playtime was over, because there was this new monster, and he was the biggest and baddest of them all. We’d fought some ugly shit, but this guy was the king. And somehow, without even realizing it, we’d been fucking up his evil world domination plan or whatever – turns out the things we’d been killing had been his minions or something like that. So he challenged us – trapped us in his world and made us fight.” 

Yu shivers, remembering Izanami’s flat stare, the sheer _apathy_ with which she had crushed each of his friends into little more than dust. He knows that his victory had had nothing at all to do with his own skill or strength – he had scraped out a win entirely due to the strength of his friends’ hearts. Hearts that had included Adachi’s, he supposes, although the two had not exactly been what one would call friends even before the horrific truth had come out. 

“Was it some sort of god?” he asks, genuinely curious. “Or a demon? Or some sort of evil concept come to life?” He remembers what Mitsuru-san and Akihiko-san had told him about their battle with Nyx, how she had been less a being and more an avatar of loss and death.   
Adachi shrugs his narrow shoulders, hugging his long legs to his chest as he recounts the obviously painful memories. “I don’t know. We never even learned its name. Maybe we _should_ have been a little more like your overly chipper truth hunters after all.” Yu can see how forced the smile on the criminal’s face is, and he feels a sudden irrational urge to put his arms around the man. He settles for resting a hand on top of one of Adachi’s own. He can feel the other man relax slightly at the contact. 

“Anyway, we fought it, like good little soldiers, marched off to fight an enemy we knew nothing about. We couldn’t do a damn thing to that creature. Even the Personas I got from my so called ‘unbreakable bonds’ could do nothing against that…that _thing_. So we fought. And lost. There. Now you know my tragic past, kid.” 

Adachi hides his face in his arms, but not before Yu can see a tear glittering at the corner of one gray eye. Yu hadn’t even been aware that crying was something the other man could _do_. Still not thinking through his actions, the silver haired man gently tugs one of Adachi’s hands away from his face, interlocking the taller man’s longer fingers with his own. The killer’s palm is wet. Adachi doesn’t look up, but he doesn’t protest either. 

Yu desperately searches for something, _anything_ he can say to make the situation even slightly better. What comes out is not exactly one of his smoothest efforts. In a burst of humor utterly unsuited to the moment, he thinks _I must have caught foot-in-mouth disease from Yosuke or Kanji_.

“What did the thing look like? Maybe if you could describe it, we could figure out what it was. Izanami and Nyx and that fire thing Sho summoned all had myths and stories about them – probably whatever you fought did too!” 

“What would that matter? I know you’ve got to be the hero in every situation, but how would figuring out which old-ass god beat me up when I was a kid help _anything_? I lost, kid. I would have died, except my friends…wouldn’t let me.” In the pause between Adachi’s sentences, Yu feels Yosuke’s hands shoving him aside, hears Naoto’s scream, sees Yukiko crumble to the ground, graceful even in death. He squeezes his companion’s hand, and this time Adachi reciprocates, if only slightly. 

There is a long silence, and at first Yu thinks that Adachi isn’t going to continue. The former detective surprises him by speaking up again. “I woke up on the floor of my room, no memory of how I got there. My powers were gone, ripped clean out of me. I never figured out whether it was the asshole we fought or the one who gave me the ability in the first place who took it away. It didn’t matter. It was gone, and my friends were gone, and the doors that nobody else could see were gone. And it _stayed_ gone, until that bitch Izanami decided to make me one of her little pawns.” 

A hard lump of something unpleasant begins to form in Yu’s gut. He’s not sure how he comes to the conclusion he does so quickly – it was always Yosuke who made the flying leaps of logic that were somehow correct, always Rise who followed her first gut instinct in every situation – but he is filled with unfailing certainty that he’s right. Adachi is hiding something from him, and it’s not just because of the pain and shame of his long-ago defeat. 

He hates to press the other man when he’s clearly so distraught, but he has to know the answer. “Adachi-san, _what did it look like_?” he asked insistently. 

When the killer finally speaks, it is in the smallest, quietest voice Yu has ever heard from him. “It was black. With huge wings covered in black feathers. Like…like a giant crow.” 

The bottom falls out of Yu’s stomach. He had been right. The creature they had glimpsed in the sky before their battle matched the description of Adachi’s old enemy perfectly. And it couldn’t be a coincidence that Adachi’s power had reawakened so soon after the thing had appeared. 

The monster which had stolen Adachi’s power and the lives of his friends had come back to haunt him again. 

A veritable tornado of emotions replaces the ball of solid dread in Yu’s gut. Fear is still there, certainly, but it is tempered with sadness for what the other man has suffered, anger that he’s capable of feeling so bad for a person he used to regard as no more than a monster, and the still present overwhelming desire to hold Adachi in his arms until the other man’s tears have dried. 

He ignores each of these emotions in favor of another lame attempt to change the subject. 

“Well, at least your power came back…that was really awesome, what you did back there in the battle. Saving me, I mean.” Yu doesn’t want to admit it out loud, but he knows that he would be dead right now if not for Adachi. 

When the criminal doesn’t respond, the leader soldiers on. “I’ve never met anyone else who has this power like me before. It’s…it’s really nice.” 

This lures a smile onto Adachi’s face, if only a small one. He stretches out the hand not entwined with Yu’s. Slowly, almost rhythmically, he summons a series of Personas, testing out his returned ability as though he is flexing a muscle sore from disuse. Yu recognizes each Persona that appears: Slime, Ghoul, Apsaras, all four Mitamas. 

“They’re all still here,” Adachi says, the sorrow in his voice at least temporarily replaced by hushed awe. “It’s like they never left.” 

Yu smiles. “It is a thrill, isn’t it?” 

Adachi stands, using their still-clasped hands to pull Yu to his feet as well. He summons a Pale Rider, a content smile on his face as he watches it canter back and forth in front of them. 

“Yeah,” the man says simply. Yu drinks in the gentle smile on his companion’s face and realizes that he will never be able to think of Adachi as simply “a killer” or “a criminal” again. 

“Sometimes, when we didn’t have anybody to rescue, I’d come in here on my own, without telling the others,” the leader admits. “Fuse new Personas just for fun, test them out, show them off to…to myself, I guess.” Adachi nods, and, though he doesn’t verbally confirm it, Yu knows that the young man who the detective had once been had done the exact same thing. 

Without thinking too deeply about it, Yu stretches out his own free hand, summoning a Hell Biker. The fiery Persona’s bike rides circles around Adachi’s Pale Rider, startling the horse. It stamps its foot and nickers anxiously. 

To both men’s surprise, they laugh at this: free, open laughter that echoes across the red-tinted hillside. Adachi retaliates by summoning an immense, coiling dragon. It’s not one Yu recognizes – their Compendia must be at least slightly different. 

Yu challenges with Seiryu, and for a moment, it’s an aerial display, dragon vs. dragon in the blood-hued sky above the two men. Yu changes it up by bringing out Archangel; Adachi counters with Uriel. It’s not a true battle – only the weakest, most superficial of “attacks” are thrown. It’s bragging, posturing, a challenge like so many of their interactions with one another – but it’s also simple fun, two battle-worn men playing around with their godlike powers on a deserted hillside. 

The silver-haired man calls Thor, using lightning to force Adachi’s Persona out of the sky. Adachi responds with Loki, Yu quickly switches to Odin before his Persona winds up frozen in place. To his surprise, his companion switches up tactics and matches Yu, summoning an Odin of his own. 

Neither man has exactly thought through the implications of having two gods cast their most powerful wind spell at once. A gust blasts across the hillside, causing the two Persona users to lose their footing. Before either can recover, they are sent tumbling down the gentle slope, pushed along by the gale-force winds at their back. 

After what seems like an eternity of falling, crashing and rolling downwards, the wind stops and the two men come to rest at the bottom of the hill, covered in scrapes and bruises but laughing their heads off like over-excited children. 

They laugh so hard that tears fill matching gray eyes. It’s not until they are struggling to catch their breath that the two companions realize the position they’re currently in – Adachi has landed on top of Yu, his hands on Yu’s shoulders and his long legs pinning the silver-haired man to the ground. 

Adachi moves to stand up, a blush dusting his pale cheeks. Yu doesn’t let him. He grasps Adachi’s tie, firmly enough to keep the other man in place but not enough to choke him. He tugs gently on the tie, pulling the taller man’s head downwards until only a few inches separate them. Adachi opens his mouth, almost certainly to ask what on earth the silver-haired man thinks he’s doing. 

Yu answers Adachi’s unasked question by kissing him. 

It’s not a gentle kiss. Yu is rough, demanding, as though he intends to claim every part of Adachi’s mouth for his own. Adachi hesitates for less than a second before eagerly responding, countering Yu’s grip on his tie by tangling one hand in the smaller man’s silver hair. 

Like their every argument, their every fight, it escalates quickly, the two combatants easily matched. Yu bites Adachi’s lower lip, forcing the taller man’s mouth open. Adachi counters by shoving his tongue into Yu’s mouth before Yu can do the same to him, exploring every inch of the new territory. Yu’s free hand digs nails into Adachi’s back. Adachi tugs at the hair between his fingers, earning a ragged moan from Yu. 

The two men break apart, panting for breath. It is only this brief pause that allows them to hear the voice clearing its throat insistently from somewhere behind them. 

Startled, they look up, hands still tangled in hair and clothing. Both men realize as one that they are no longer lying at the foot of a grassy hill underneath a red sky. The surface beneath them is smooth. The sky is a dark, deep blue – and is, upon further inspection, not a sky at all but a slightly domed roof. And they are no longer alone – a man and a woman are watching them. His face is impassive, but hers is amused, a hand over her mouth hiding what might be a smile or even laughter. 

Yu and Adachi realize the reality of their situation at the exact same time: they are lying, lips kiss-swollen and legs entwined, on the floor of the Velvet Room.


	10. Unexpected Truth

Yu scrambles away from the other man, blushing as red as though – well, as though he had just been caught kissing the man who pushed Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi into a television. Even remembering the ‘Miss’ Yasogami pageant and accidentally walking in on the girls in the hot springs, he really can’t think of any situation that could possibly be more embarrassing than this one. 

When he finally dares to meet Margaret’s golden eyes, he can see the amusement written plainly across her usually serene face. He remembers that his last kiss before this one had been her goodbye on his last day in Inaba. Of all the companions he’d gathered throughout that fateful year, the two he’d ended up locking lips with were the supernatural attendant and the murderer. Not the best of track records. 

“Welcome to the Velvet Room,” she says finally, seemingly having regained some form of composure. “We have much to discuss. With both of you,” the blue-clad woman adds with a pointed look at Adachi, who has not yet gotten around to standing up. 

The criminal takes his time getting to his feet, not breaking eye contact with Margaret the entire time. He runs a hand through his mussed hair, a tongue over his swollen lips. Finally, he addresses her. 

“It’s Margery, right? The older sister?” 

“Margaret.” Her voice is Bufudyne-cold as she finally seems to recognize the taller man. _They’ve met before,_ Yu realizes, wondering why this surprises him. He had assumed that his companion’s newly revealed power must have come from the Velvet Room, but he hadn’t fully considered what that meant. The image of a younger Adachi – shorter haired, bespectacled, smiles coming more easily to his lips than they ever had in Inaba – showing Margaret around the city and receiving cryptic advice from Igor brings an unexpected smile to the silver-haired leader’s lips. 

“So that’s how it is.” The bitter bite of Adachi’s words is like a Zio to the back of Yu’s neck. Somehow – probably somewhere between the smiles and the jokes and the battles and the kisses – he had managed to forget how _mean_ Adachi could get. “Still got a bee in your bonnet because I got my ass kicked by old-crow feathers? Well, you should have thought about what a piss-poor Chosen One I’d make before you went and _chose_ me. Whose fault is _that_ , huh?” 

Her voice drops into sub-zero temperatures. “Their last words were your name, did you know? ‘ _Tohru_ ’ they sobbed out as they fell, and we were three where once we were five. We attendants do not age as you humans do – the grief is still fresh, Tohru Adachi. The hole in my heart where my sisters were – the hole _you_ tore with your foolish, selfish actions – still bleeds. And yet here you stand, granted a second chance with the power of which you proved yourself undeserving.” 

Adachi opens his mouth, but before any retort can come out both combatants are silenced. The aged, long-nosed man speaks, his voice barely above a whisper yet resounding with authority. “Margaret, the Master’s decisions are not for us to question.” 

_The Velvet Room will never make sense to me,_ Yu muses. More worrying than Igor’s murmurings about some “Master” who apparently outranked even him, however, was the sheer venom in Margaret’s voice. The pale-haired woman had always been friend and mentor to him, but her words directed at Adachi were full of hate. Clearly, the criminal had withheld at least some information during the confession of his tragic past. 

The silver-haired Fool brushes the tips of his fingers against his lips, still red and sensitive from the recent contact. He looks from gray eyes to golden and wonders just what he has gotten himself into. 

“Look, blondie,” Adachi snaps. He’s playing the monster again, all twisting smirks and bitter detachment. “You weren’t the only one who lost someone in that fight. Besides, it’s not like I _knew_ losing would kill your little sisters—“ 

“Caroline,” Margaret’s face is a stony mask, but her words are as heated as her opponent’s. “And Justine. You ignored their warnings, you made light of their advice. You ran around playing Phantom Thieves with your friends and your masks and your talking cat instead of listening to them. Never once did you ask _why_ you had been granted your power, never once did you deign to think that there might be a _reason_ we had given it to you, other than allowing you to play at being gods and heroes. Their names were Caroline and Justine, and you ignored them – and your ignorance _killed them_.” 

This at last wrenches a honest reaction out of Adachi. The criminal lunges forward, his smirk vanished and replaced with a burning anger – the Agi to the blue-clad woman’s Bufu. “You think you’re the only one who lost someone in that battle? _Because you’re not._ Ryuuji.” He spits the names at her as though they are projectiles that can wound. “Anne. Yuusuke. Morgana, I didn’t even have a body to bury – she just faded away into black smoke, nothing was left but the stupid collar I bought her. And Caroline and Justine too – what, you think I don’t miss them? You think I didn’t cry remembering how they would hold my hands and call me ‘big brother Tohru,’ or when I showed them Arsene and they smiled at me for the first time?” 

Yu thinks about reaching out to take one of Adachi’s hands, but the other man has balled them into white-knuckled fists, nails drawing blood from his palms. “Ryuuji. Anne. Yuusuke. Morgana. Caroline. Justine. Mayumi and Saki. Kinshiro, indirectly. And the ‘almosts’, the ones this idiot saved – Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, Naoto….Nanako. _Do you really think I ever forgot a single one of their names?_ ” 

“ENOUGH!” Yu has never heard Igor shout, but the ageless man does so now. He does not rise from his seat, but his wide eyes freeze Adachi, Margaret and Yu in their places. “Margaret, put aside your grief. It is as it always has been. A threat to our world has arisen, and Master Philemon has granted the power of the wild card to a chosen guest. Why he should choose _this_ guest, why he should grant Tohru Adachi a second chance…” He waves his wrinkled hands over the ever-present spread of deep blue tarot cards before him. “Not even the cards can answer that. But it is not our place to question. It is our place to guide.” 

A flush of red rises in Margaret’s porcelain cheeks. “I will not.” She slams the massive Persona Compendium shut, as if for emphasis. “I will _not_ serve as this man’s attendant, and neither will I allow you to force Elizabeth or Theodore to do the job.” 

“Do you forget your contract?” Yu would not have thought that Igor’s eyes could widen any further, yet he witnesses that exact occurrence now. “Must I show you your own signature?” 

“Contracts can be canceled,” his assistant snaps, “and there was nothing in our agreed-upon terms about requiring me to aid a murderer.” 

The king of all awkward silences descends then, the two Velvet Room denizens locking eyes, neither willing to give an inch. Yu desperately thinks of anything he can say to fix this, but nothing comes to mind. 

As with so many of the silences that had stretched between the two of them in that red-hued world, it is broken by Adachi. 

“There’s a girl in Inaba,” he begins. His gray eyes are locked on Margaret, even though she is still staring down Igor and seems not to notice his gaze. “The last time I saw her, she was about their height, about their—well, about the age that they _looked,_ anyway. Her name is Nanako. She loves shopping at Junes and can quote every episode of Magical Witch Detective by heart.” 

Margaret is still not looking at either of them, but she has folded her arms across her chest and leaned slightly forward. Though she may not want to admit it, she is listening intently. 

“She never called me big brother like they did – that honor belonged to someone else.” The smile he shoots in Yu’s direction is almost shy. “But sometimes, usually when she thought her dad wasn’t listening, she called me Uncle Tohru.” Adachi blushes, actually _blushes_ at that, a proper tomato-red. Despite knowing that this is neither the time nor the place, a part of Yu’s brain insists on thinking about other ways he could bring that blush to his companion’s face again. 

“And did this _Nanako_ inspire you to put aside your murdering ways and try to become a hero instead?” Margaret snapped, disbelief and disgust evident in her voice. 

“No,” Adachi unclenches his fists and reaches to take Yu’s hand. “He did.” 

Yu is pretty sure his cheeks are as red as the former detective’s. He almost misses Adachi’s next words because his heartbeat has suddenly become approximately five times louder than before. 

“I almost got her killed, of course – I’d like to blame my incompetent accomplice for that one, but while we’re being all truthful here, he wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t told him how close those kids were to exposing what he was up to. She would have died, if not for our Sister-Complex Kingpin over here. I could say that I lost interest in my little game after her, that I dropped enough hints for Mr. Hero and his inch-high private eye to pick up. I could say that I surrendered gracefully – but we all know that isn’t true.” He shoots a smirk at Yu that does nothing to quiet the leader’s pounding heart. 

“But she’s in danger now. This thing I lost against when I was a kid…you’re an intelligent lady, blondie, do you really think it’s going to stop at just the back sides of our TVs? It wants something – death, destruction, collective apathy, to conquer the world, who knows. Whatever its goal, I doubt it’ll be satisfied with one perverted bear. And I’m not any kind of hero, but….but this thing’ll get Nanako, and her dad, and Mr. Perfect’s little friends, and….I’m not going to let that happen. I may still be the world’s shittiest Chosen One, but I’m the one you’ve _got >.” _

Yu squeezes his companion’s hand, trying to communicate with that simple action that he understands how much it has cost Adachi to say these things, how much this truth means to him. 

The silver-haired man thinks he sees a glint of wetness at the corners of Margaret’s golden eyes, but her voice when she speaks is level and unbroken. “Our last guest still fully retains his own Persona powers. He is more than capable of this task. I could strip you of our power again right now, and throw you back in your cell twice as broken as before. Maybe _then_ you’ll finally start to understand how I feel.” 

Adachi’s response is not a spoken one. Instead, he reaches out with the hand not grasping Yu’s and summons a single Persona: an immense, blue-winged figure Yu immediately recognizes as Sraosha. He can almost hear Nanako’s laughter echoing through the Velvet Room as the Persona appears. 

“Caroline and Justine called the bond I had with them the Justice Arcana,” Adachi says. “I always thought it had the most beautiful Personas. Anne and Ryuuji always used to tease me, asking what kind of Phantom Thief used angels as his weapons. I…I think of Nanako, now, to summon the angels. She may not have made me a hero, but her and her dad and this kid…they made me realize that forming bonds might not be so stupid and useless after all.” 

With a sharp, abrupt wave of her hand, Margaret banishes Sraosha. The Persona collapses into a shower of deep blue sparkles, landing on the cover of the massive Compendium and just as quickly vanishing. “Fine,” she snaps. Yu meets her terrifying gaze as she intentionally speaks only to him. “I will aid both our guest and his… _ally_ until they have successfully defeated this new threat. After that, though, I insist on the closure of _both_ of their contracts with the Velvet Room.” 

Igor shrugs, seemingly not willing to fight any further. “As you wish.” 

Yu knows he should probably keep quiet, but he can’t help asking. “How will we find you again? The only Velvet Room door I ever saw in the TV world was right at the entrance, and we must be _miles_ from there by now!” 

Margaret’s response is biting, and Yu swears he can feel the Empress Personas housed within his soul shudder. “When you need us, we will be there. Has that not always been the way of the Velvet Room?” 

Before either man can respond, even just to say goodbye, the midnight-blue limousine shudders and vanishes around them. For the second time in as many hours, the two unlikely allies are sent tumbling down a grassy hill. This time, they land several feet apart, and Yu cannot decide if he feels disappointed or relieved. 

“That was…intense,” Adachi deadpans, opting to remain sprawled out in the grass rather than bother getting to his feet. 

Yu turns to face his companion, only to discover that he can barely see the outline of the former detective’s lean body. For a bizarre moment, he wonders if they are still in the Velvet Room, because everything seems blue instead of red. 

And then it hits him, as abrupt as a God Hand to the face. The eerie red sun, the judgmental eye that had watched every step of their journey so far, has set. In its place, the vast sky above them is studded with thousands of stars. A deep blue evening has descended over the TV world. 

“Adachi,” Yu whispers reverently, “ _look_.” 

“Wow,” the taller man breathes, barely above a whisper. “What do you think happened?” 

“That crow thing, whatever it is. We must have weakened it. When we – when _you_ \- defeated all those Personas earlier, whatever power it has over this world must have decreased a little.” 

“Good,” Adachi yawns. “Now maybe we can finally get some halfway decent sleep.” 

Yu shifts closer, trying to get a better view of his companion. He does, and the breath catches in the silver-haired man’s throat. 

In the starlight, Adachi is radiant. His always pale skin seems to glow, and his gray eyes catch the light in such a way as to appear more like silver. He can see a red mark at the corner of Adachi’s mouth, where he had bitten down earlier during their heated kiss. 

Yu thinks about the battle, about the white-hot adrenaline that had coursed and thrummed through his veins, leaving every nerve still tingling even now. He thinks about the joy on the other man’s face during their mock Persona ‘battle,’ about the realization that it was the first time he’d ever heard Adachi laugh. He thinks about the kiss, of course, and about the way the other man had blushed when he reached for his hand in the Velvet Room. About the words that rang with an emotion and truth he’d never before heard from Adachi – and especially about two of those words, the simple _”He did”_ that had held so much meaning and potential. 

Yu Narukami thinks about all of these things, and he makes a decision. 

“No,” he replies, moving closer, his body shaking with nerves but his voice steady. “I don’t think we’re going to get much sleep tonight at all.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I delayed posting this chapter for an embarrassingly long time because I have been REALLY worried about how readers would react to the twist. The truth is, the entire idea for Necessity's Bedfellows came from a friend joking that the P5 Protagonist's design looked a lot like a young Adachi and daring me to write a fic where this is the case. And....somehow, it turned into this. 
> 
> For those of you who weren't turned away by the revelation and my interpretations of Adachi, the P5 Protagonist and the P5 story, there is a chance that next chapter might necessitate a rating change to "Explicit". I'll try to have it posted a lot sooner than this one!


	11. Starlit Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit sexual content. All sex is consensual and between two consenting adults, but if that's not your cup of tea, feel free to skip this chapter. The plot will resume next chapter. If this -is- your cup of tea, enjoy!

“Mm?” Adachi murmurs, shifting his weight in search of the most comfortable patch of grass. Yu had hoped that the other man would catch his meaning with words alone, but his companion’s fixation on sleep is not so easily overcome. Steeling himself, Yu places a hand on Adachi’s shoulder. He hopes that Adachi can’t feel the trembles that seem to shake the leader’s entire body. 

“What do you mean, we’re not… _oh_ ” Adachi finally seems to register the intensity in Yu’s eyes, the way said eyes are hungrily roaming over every inch of his form. And then again, quietly, a revelation: “ _Oh._ ” 

He reaches out, and Yu practically falls into his embrace and they are kissing, again – but it’s not the explosive adrenaline-fueled fire of their first kiss underneath the harsh red sun. This is an achingly sweet kiss, gentle and prolonged –a kiss for the pale starlight and velvet-blue sky. 

As the kisses deepen and multiply, their bodies shyly interrogate one another. Adachi wonders if Yu’s hair is truly as soft as it looks, and his hand answers him, running silky silver locks between his fingers. _(yes)_ Yu investigates with nose and tongue whether Adachi’s long, pale neck might hold any particularly sensitive spots; his companion replies with hitched whispers that give over to full-voiced moans. _(yes)_ Both ask with every brush of lips and intake of breath if this is it, the place and the moment where their high-stakes year in Inaba and their tension-fraught days in the TV World have been leading them all along. _(yes, yes, yes)_

Yu bites down on a spot just above Adachi’s collarbone. The resulting gasp emboldens him, and he tries his teeth in other spots – a full bottom lip, the lobe of an ear, the tip of a finger that reaches out to cup his chin. Each sound he draws from Adachi’s throat is an affirmation: he wants Adachi and Adachi wants him. He marvels how articulate the chatterbox of a criminal becomes despite his inability to form coherent words. 

He is so intent on exploring every inch of the other man’s neck and lips that he doesn’t notice Adachi unbuttoning his shirt until he feels the cool night air on his chest. Adachi’s hand on the same expanse of skin is a burning brand in comparison. The jolt of conflicting sensation shocks him. He moans “Ada…” and stops. It’s more than a bit absurd to still be calling the other man by his last name in _this_ situation.

He tries again: ”Tohru". For a moment, his companion stills, and Yu is afraid he has done something terribly wrong. Then the hand in his hair tightens, nails dig into his side, and the command comes in a low, urgent voice: “Say that again”. 

“Tohru?” His response is hesitant, a question. He can’t tell if the other man is mad at him, if he is about to be hurt or worse, rejected. But Adachi’s eyelids flutter shut, and he murmurs something that sounds like “yes,” then repeats: “Say it _again_ ”. 

Yu draws it out this time, teasing, trying out each syllable on his tongue. _“Tohru…”_ He tilts his head back, lets his voice become a moan, exploiting this newly discovered weakness for all its worth. 

Adachi can’t even get the whole command out this time. “Again.” 

Yu obliges. “Tohru, Tohru, _Tohru_.” Adachi kisses the word from his mouth, like his own name on Yu’s lips is breath itself. The leader thinks about Inaba residents warily addressing policemen and outsiders both, about prison guards branding their charges with impartial numbers. He realizes how long it must have been since anyone called the man he is kissing “Tohru.” He resolves to say it over and over, until he has memorized the feel of it in his mouth. 

The taller man tugs him upwards by his shoulders, until both of them are in a sitting position. Yu responds with an indignant whine, disliking how he now has to stretch to reach Adachi’s neck and lips. He is about to push them back down again when, with a single, forceful motion, Adachi finishes removing Yu’s shirt. 

The silver-haired man shivers as his fingers fumble at the knot of Adachi’s tie. Why is he so nervous now, when Adachi had already seen him naked earlier, in the stream? The difference, he realizes with a blush thankfully hidden by the velvety darkness, is intent. Earlier, he had hurried into the water to keep his naked body out of Adachi’s line of sight. Now, he _wants_ to be seen. 

Adachi is licking and nipping a trail along Yu’s collarbone, making the leader’s task of unbuttoning his companion’s shirt all the more difficult. Finally, however, garment and tie both lie discarded in the grass next to Yu’s own shirt. Yu’s long fingers trace the scars and bruises he had noticed earlier, earning him more pleased sighs from the other man. The marks of Adachi’s time in prison are patches of shadow that only serve to make his starlit form all the more radiant – all the more desirable. 

Impatient, Yu reaches out with the hand not occupied in tracing a pale, jagged scar running up his companion’s side. He’s trying to figure out how to undo the button of the other man’s pants one-handed when Adachi’s fingers entwine with his own, halting him. 

“Is this okay? Are _you_ okay?” he asks, concern evident in his silver-lit eyes. 

“Yes,” Yu says, and means it. 

Still, Adachi hesitates. “You want….a murderer?” 

“I want _you_.” He pauses, smirks lazily up at the other man. “ _Tohru_.” 

Under his palm, Yu feels Adachi’s heartbeat speed up. When he speaks, all of the criminal’s usual glibness deserts him. 

“That’s…” he stammers. “I can’t….You want….” After the truths he had already spoken in the Velvet Room earlier, further deep, meaningful words fail him. “Fuck it,” he decides. “Come here.” 

Yu isn’t sure what he expects – to be pulled in for another kiss, perhaps, or even flicked in the forehead while Adachi mocks him for an overly sentimental weirdo. Instead, his companion’s long fingers deftly unbutton Yu’s pants, sliding both them and his undergarments down his slim legs in one motion. Adachi’s signature smirk never leaves his face for an instant as he lowers his head between Yu’s legs and slowly, deliberately takes Yu into his mouth. 

An incongruous thought strikes him then, as Yu wonders what Teddie would think if he learned that his beloved Sensei was ‘scoring’ inside the realm that was his home. But thoughts of his friends, or Teddie or even their mission fade from his mind as quickly as they appear. Even the bear’s current plight cannot hope to compete with whatever Adachi is doing with his tongue. 

“Fuck, Tohru, _yes_ ,” he affirms, the nails of his right hand digging furrows in the grass while the left combs through Adachi’s messy black hair. 

The criminal chuckles, and Yu feels every vibration of that chuckle against his skin. Adachi pulls back briefly, and Yu whines at the loss of sensation. 

“Best keep it down, or you’ll alert every rogue Persona in this entire damn world to our location.” 

“If any rogue Personas even attempt to interrupt this, I’ll be so angry I won’t even need to summon Izanagi to kill them,” Yu responds. He pushes lightly at the top of Adachi’s head, not-so-subtly hinting at the other man to return to his previous actions. 

And _oh,_ Adachi does, and any trace of Yu’s usual composure is thrown out the window as he lets out a near-constant string of verbalizations. He’s saying _more_ and _please_ and _Tohru_ but mostly he’s just moaning, doing everything he can to let Adachi know just how much he wants this, wants _him_. 

He’s not sure exactly when he went from hating Tohru Adachi to reluctantly appreciating his company to wanting the other man to fuck him, mark him and claim him as his own. When had this become the inevitable place their conflict would lead? When he willingly broke Adachi out of prison to aid him in his quest? When he spoke the killer’s name to Naoto and Yosuke that snowy night outside of Aiya? Or earlier – when they first introduced themselves in the shadow cast by Mayumi Yamano’s hanging corpse? 

And in the end, does it really matter? Wherever it began, it has lead _here_ , to Adachi swirling his tongue over the head of Yu’s cock, to a heat that pools in Yu’s belly and spreads until it feels like it will consume him from the inside. In a strange way, it feels like summoning Izanagi for the first time, except instead of his mind overflowing with heat and pressure and power, it’s his body. 

He tightens his grip on Adachi’s hair. “Tohru, I’m….I….” 

The whine Adachi makes in the back of his throat when Yu tugs on his hair is enough to make Yu come, his eyes shut, his fists clenched and a scream of “Tohru” on his lips. The overload of sensation is like getting hit with Ziodyne and Diarahan at the same time, a bolt of white-hot lightning that leaves warm tingles in its wake.

When Yu finally opens his eyes, Adachi is still kneeling between his legs, long fingers rubbing comforting circles on his silver-haired lover’s hip. Yu blushes red at the tender smile on Adachi’s face and even redder at the few drops of his own seed still lingering at the corner of Adachi’s mouth. 

“I’m sorry, I should have pulled away, I didn’t mean to….” 

When he realizes that Yu is watching, the taller man licks the drops away with a single swipe of his tongue. “I meant you to,” he responds, still smiling. “You weren’t lying when you said you wanted me.” 

“I still do,” Yu insists, not wanting the magic of this night to end even though he feels vaguely boneless. Even lifting a hand to stroke Adachi’s cheek seems to take hours. 

“Don’t worry, I’m yours,” Adachi promises, leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of Yu’s mouth. The tender words make Yu’s heart race. He wonders if his lover notices. “Just be patient for a little while. You don’t want to wear yourself out all at once. We’ve got all night.” 

All night, and the next night, and the one after that. In his post-orgasmic bliss, the realities of monsters and prison life sentences do not occur to Yu. His focus narrows to Adachi – to wanting to repay Adachi in some small way for how he had just made Yu feel. 

“Let me touch you, then,” he suggests, reaching a hand in what he assumes is the general direction of Adachi’s cock. The dark-haired man catches the hand instead, twining their fingers together. “In a little while,” he repeats. “Like I said, we don’t have to rush. But...kiss me again?” 

And Yu does – deep kisses on his lips, short, quick kisses on his neck, mixed in with the occasional bite, kisses for each of his slender, elegant fingers. He appreciates the expression on his lover’s face as he covers him in kisses. Shyness is a new look on Adachi – but oh, it’s so, _so_ good on him. 

Adachi shifts and squirms to give Yu better access. Yu winds up straddling him, his hands gently but firmly pinning Adachi’s wrists to the ground. He bites at a spot high on the dark-haired man’s neck, hard enough to leave a mark. It’s far above what would be hidden by the collar of Adachi’s shirt, but he does not care. Who else would see it? Who else is there in this world but the two of them? 

For a while, the two new lovers are content with long, slow kisses. But all too soon Yu feels his need rising again, and rolls his hips forward to indicate his desire for _more_. 

Once again, it is Adachi who hesitates, though his reasons this time are technical rather than moral. “I’m pretty sure that shopping list I gave you didn’t include lube,” he points out. 

“No, it didn’t,” Yu agrees. “It’ll be fine, I don’t need…” 

His lover shakes his head firmly. “You do. We do. I am not letting either of us get hurt doing something stupid. I want to have _sex_ with you, not leave you bleeding.” 

A fluttery coil of heat makes its way to Yu’s groin at Adachi’s frank statement. He tries to ignore it as he desperately reaches for any solution or alternative…then a memory surfaces, so embarrassing it causes him to flush from forehead to collarbone. 

“In the smallest pocket of my bag,” he admits in a tiny voice. “Last Christmas…in Inaba, Teddie’s presents for everybody…” 

Adachi laughs, holding up a hand to forestall further explanation. Yu reluctantly disentangles himself from his lover and allows Adachi to make the brief journey to retrieve the bottle of lubricant. It’s luridly pink and has some faux-French title that’s like six words long, but it will serve their purpose well enough. 

Yu lets his gaze rove appreciatively along Adachi’s lean form. The bruises and scars of his prison sentence are less evident now, dominated by redder, fresher marks left by Yu’s own teeth. He eyes the other man’s arousal, feeling the slightest touch of nervousness beneath the lust and excitement building inside him. 

“So….” he asks quietly. “How are we doing this?” 

Adachi’s eyes widen. “You mean…you haven’t?” A look of astonishment crosses the former detective’s face. “You mean to say that you had the Hanamura kid, Risette, that girl from the inn….hell, half of Inaba fawning over you and you never…?” 

Yu turns away, suddenly focused very intently on the grass beneath him. “Is that bad?” he mumbles. 

“No,” Adachi insists. When Yu still refuses to look at him, he gently places two fingers beneath the silver-haired man’s chin and tilts it upwards. “Hey”. His voice is soft, tender, _sweet_ , and Yu falls for him all over again. “I just…I never in a million years imagined that I’d get to be your first.” 

Yu figures that level of honesty, still so new and unexpected from the former detective, should be repaid in kind. “I never in a million years imagined that I’d want you to be,” he confesses. “But now I…I wouldn’t want anyone else.” 

Adachi strokes Yu’s hair gently, marveling at the softness of the silver locks. “I’ve done this before,” he states simply. “I…always insisted on being on top. Because…because I thought I was a hero, a leader, something special. Because I thought I deserved it. But with you…I’ll gladly…” 

Yu stops his blushing lover before he can get the words out. “No,” he insists. His next words are probably the most embarrassing thing he’s said so far during this intimate night, but he forces himself to hold Adachi’s gaze. “I want you inside me.” 

Yu’s tone had been nervous and shaky, a million miles away from what he would remotely consider ‘seductive,’ yet the effect on Adachi is immediate. He breaks their held gaze, his power of speech seemingly deserting him for the second time that night. “Oh fuck, Yu….” 

The silver-haired man chuckles. “Yes, fuck me, that’s exactly what I want you to do.” He rolls his hips upward once, pressing his groin flush against Adachi’s, wordlessly signaling that he was done waiting. 

Adachi doesn’t hesitate. The waiting is over. He grasps Yu’s hips, tight enough to leave marks where his elegant fingers connect with soft, pale flesh. “Up.” His tone is gentle, but with an edge of command that only excites Yu further. He lifts his hips, and Adachi slides something underneath them. As he settles into the new slightly raised position, he recognizes the object as a folded blanket, soft and cool beneath his heated skin. 

“Relax,” Adachi murmurs, opening the lurid pink bottle and squeezing a bit of its contents – thankfully neither pink nor scented – onto his hand. “I won’t hurt you.” And Yu – Yu the leader, Yu who is always in control, Yu whose friends look up to him for every decision – lies back and lets every muscle relax, surrendering fully to his new lover. 

Under the starlit sky of the TV World, Yu Narukami lets out a ragged moan as the murderer he spent a year chasing slowly, oh-so-gently presses a single finger inside him. 

As he shifts his hips to accommodate the new sensation, Yu muses that _this_ part of sex doesn’t feel like any Persona spell at all. He finds himself glad that he has nothing to compare this to – it’s something that belongs only to Adachi and Yu, and to the myriad stars of this night that has changed everything. 

“More, Tohru, _more_ ” Yu begs, and it seems Adachi is done waiting as a second finger adds itself to the first. There’s pain, now, just a little, but Adachi moves slowly and whispers soothing words and returns to rubbing small circles on Yu’s hip with his unoccupied hand. 

Adachi curls his fingers just so, drawing another scream of his name from Yu’s lips. Yu is pretty sure that his vision would have blanked out if his eyes hadn’t already been closed.   
Now the leader is the one to lose his ability to form full sentences. “Tohru…want…now…” he gasps out, the last word turning into a moan as Adachi hits the same spot again. 

Somehow, Adachi finds the composure to laugh. “Just a little more. I promise.” He moves his free hand from Yu’s hip to take the other man’s hand again. Yu clings to his lover like a lifeline, squeezing Adachi’s hand tightly as he rides out the pressure and slight pain of a third finger. His legs twitch involuntarily as Adachi’s fingers thrust into him once, twice, three times, hitting the sweet spot within him each time. 

“Now…?” Yu asks breathlessly, feeling as though he cannot be stretched any further open than he already is. 

“Yes.” He can hear the smile in Adachi’s voice as he withdraws his fingers. He whines at the loss, grasping at Adachi’s other hand, now the only remaining connection between them. 

“Shh, yes, relax, Yu, you’re beautiful like this, fuck, you’re perfect,” Words spill from Adachi’s lips as he slowly presses himself into Yu. Yu himself is beyond words, but he gasps out fragments as close to “yes” as he’s capable of producing. 

Adachi pushes fully inside, then stills. It feels as though the whole world stills with him, stars and trees and stream holding their breath as if the motions of the two lovers controls the very flow of time in this realm. 

“Ready?” Adachi’s voice is choked with restraint, and Yu realizes what a great effort his lover must be exerting to ask instead of simply acting. 

“Tohru, yes,” he breathes, and Adachi moans “Yu” in response, and moves. 

It’s the red-sun kiss all over again, all the earlier blue tenderness cast aside in favor of movement and sound and _want_. Pleasure and pain mold together into a single feeling, red-hot and fiery white, sweeter than water and more necessary than air. Yu manages to open his eyes for a brief second. The sight of Adachi, head thrown back and mouth hung half-open in pure ecstasy, burns itself into his mind forever. 

Adachi’s cock finds the same spot his fingers had, and Yu screams his lover’s name to the sky. In response, he feels Adachi untangle their fingers and reach down to take him in hand. The combined sensations are far more than Yu can handle, and he comes with a scream that’s supposed to be “Tohru” but probably sounds nothing at all like it. 

“Yu, oh, _Yu_!” Adachi follows scant seconds later, collapsing on top of Yu’s chest as his own arms seem to lack the strength to hold him up. Yu gently pats Adachi’s sweat-stained hair as his lover slips out of him. For a moment, they simply lie there, neither quite strong enough to move. 

“Yu, I…” Adachi starts to say, and then stops. Perhaps further truths were best left for another starlit night. Instead, he lightly kisses his lover before rising and taking the soiled blanket to the nearby stream. 

By the time he has cleaned the blanket and himself, and wet a towel to clean Yu off as well, he finds his lover already asleep, a blissful smile on his face. Laughing softly to himself, Adachi spreads his own exhausted body on the ground next to Yu’s, gathering the man into his arms and drifting peacefully off beneath the stars.


	12. Interlude: Inaba of a Pinch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While we leave our heroes basking in the afterglow, it's time to check in on the rest of our favorite Investigation Team!

“Fuck Adachi,” Yosuke declares, slamming his fist on the low table in front of him. Across said table, Chie shoots him a death glare, indicating with a tilt of her head the slumped form of the man two seats down from her. 

“I mean….he sucks. I mean, this whole thing sucks.” The hot-tempered man sloppily attempts to correct himself. “I mean, I guess…sorry, Detective Dojima.” 

He is saved from further pathetic attempts at conversation by the rattling of the sliding door. The inn’s proprietress enters with a steaming mug of black coffee, the largest her kitchen has to offer. “Here you go, Detective Dojima,” she says rather unnecessarily as she places the mug in front of the downcast man. 

The older man raises shadowed, red-rimmed eyes, locking gazes with the short woman standing at the head of the table. Though stress, distress and lack of sleep have added years to his already lined face, the detective’s mind remains as sharp as always. “You know where he is,” he says. “You know where they both are.” It’s not a question. 

Naoto nods. “Given the evidence, only one logical conclusion presents itself. What we don’t know is _why_. Which is where I had hoped you could help us, given you have spoken to Adachi-san far more recently than any of us.” 

“We’re real sorry about this, uh, sir,” her blonde boyfriend adds awkwardly. “Having to ask you all these questions, I mean.” 

“Find my nephew, and you’ll have no need to apologize,” Dojima responds. Glances pass around the table as the five assembled members of the Investigation Team each notice that he had almost said a different word than “nephew”. 

“We will, sir,” Naoto asserts with a confidence none of them feels. The older detective had been right – they all knew without a doubt _where_ their leader was. _Why_ he was there, and how they were going to get him out again, were the trickier questions here. 

Yukiko stands before another awkward silence can be allowed to descend. “Why don’t I go fetch Nanako-chan,” she suggests, struggling to fill her voice with false cheer. “I’m sure she’s done bathing by now. I’ll get her dressed and ready to go so Naoto can ask you any last questions she needs, Detective Dojima.” 

The weary policeman manages a smile at the tall, serene woman. “Thanks again for letting her use the hot springs while we talked. It’s a real treat for her.” 

“Nanako-chan is welcome here anytime,” the innkeeper responds with sincerity as she exits. The smile fades almost immediately from Dojima’s face as Naoto clears her throat and resumes her questioning. 

“Just to confirm one last time while I have you here, Detective, you last visited Det….I mean, Adachi-san…” 

“Three days before he was reported missing. Recently, I had been visiting him close to once a week. Usually it’s not that often, more like a few times a month, but, when I’m on a tough case…well, his insight’s as sharp as it ever was, maybe more so, and talking to him gives me a…” Dojima seems to be weighing each word before he speaks “…a perspective I wouldn’t have otherwise.” He looks from Naoto to Kanji to Chie, fully aware that he has just admitted before an internationally famous detective, her assistant, and an up-and-coming police trainee that he has been unofficially consulting with a convicted killer. 

All three let the admission slip, determined to stay focused on the problem at hand. “And he mentioned nothing of Yu-senpai?” Though high school is behind all of them, old habits die hard, and the familiar honorific falls easily from Naoto’s lips. 

Dojima shakes his head. “We talked about the case I’d been working. He shared some anecdote about two inmates who tried to stab each other with forks at the dinner table. I think he found it funny. He didn’t mention Yu, or any of you all.” The weary man taps his chin with the tips of his calloused fingers. “Now that I think about it, I don’t think he’s mentioned a single one of your names in the entire time I’ve been visiting him. He asks after Nanako, always, but….not any of you.” 

Chie raises an eyebrow at Naoto, who nods imperceptibly. Without exchanging a single word, the detective and the future policewoman know that they are thinking the same thing: though he claimed to have told the truth about the TV World to his captors, the killer had kept the information from Dojima. The details of how they had come to capture Adachi and the events within Inaba Tartarus remained a secret to which the older man was not privy. 

The usually cheerful fighter’s face falls. If Dojima didn’t know the truth, then Adachi wouldn’t have told him anything even if he _had_ been having regular contact with their leader. It seemed increasingly likely that not a single one of their questions could be answered here on the front side of the TV. 

Naoto admits that she has no further questions, and the older detective stands, using one large hand to brace himself against the table. Before he exits, he opens his mouth to speak again, but seems to think better of it. Instead, he nods briefly to the assembled Team members before exiting. 

Silence threatens to envelop the room after Dojima’s departure, but Yosuke prevents it. “Damn!” he exclaims. “We didn’t learn _anything_ new! We still don’t know how Adachi tricked partner into going to the jail, or how he got them both into the TV world.” 

Kanji rounds on Yosuke. “Have you listened to a word anyone has been saying?” The tall blonde’s temper has cooled down significantly since starting a relationship with Naoto, but, as always, there’s something about Yosuke that riles him up more quickly than ever. “There’s no way for Adachi-san to have gotten in contact with Yu-senpai. I know that none of us want to think Senpai willingly went to visit Adachi-san, but it’s like that thing Naoto kept saying in London. Uh…whatever isn’t not true, has to be true? Somethin’ like that?” 

Yosuke stands, not even caring that Kanji still has him beat by a good several inches. “I know my partner, and he would NEVER do something crazy impulsive like visiting a killer in jail without talking to us first!”  
“Are you deaf, Yosuke?” Chie interjects. “He _did_ try to talk to us. We all got a call from him the day Adachi-san went missing, remember?” 

“I assume that something dangerous had come up, and he reached out to us to attempt to enlist our aid, but…regrettably, we had all grown busy, and complacent, and neglected to hear him out.” Naoto’s voice is calm, but she has removed the hat from her head and is twisting it in her hands. “Given that Yu-senpai had the Junes TV in his position, my hypothesis is that whatever danger he tried to make us aware of originated in the TV world.” 

“ _Or_ he got some creepy message from Adachi and knew he was in danger!” Yosuke insists, not backing down. “If something was really wrong with partner….there’s no way I wouldn’t have known.” 

“Yosuke…” Chie sounds almost sad. “I know we all feel like this is our fault…” 

The brunette man turns away from Kanji to face the still-seated fighter. “It _is_ our fault, Chie! So instead of sitting around and talking like this, let’s go into the TV World, rescue partner, and put Adachi back in jail where he belongs!” 

The green-clad woman looks from Yosuke to Naoto back to Yosuke, torn between following her impulsive nature and heeding the lessons of police training.

Naoto grips the hat as tightly as though it were a living being from which she was trying to squeeze the breath. “Yosuke, do you think I don’t want to rescue Senpai as quickly as possible? I just believe it is not prudent to act until we have enough information to do so. If we could identify what the problem was that caused him to contact us, then we-“ 

“Problem identified,” says a voice at the door. Amidst all the arguing, nobody had even heard the door open. Five pairs of eyes turn to where two members of the Investigation Team stand just within the room. Behind them, in the doorway, two members of the Inn’s staff are obviously straining to carry an immense cardboard box between them. 

“Just set it down there on the table, thank you,” Yukiko orders serenely. As the two staff members comply, the proprietress leads the exhausted-looking, damp-eyed young woman beside her to a seat. She slumps down in the offered chair, burying her face in her hands. 

Naoto opens her mouth to begin interrogating the new arrival, but her boyfriend stops her with a pointed look. He kneels down, placing a hand on the brunette woman’s shoulder. “It’s good to see ya, Rise,” he says in a gentle tone. 

She leans gratefully into the proffered contact, but does not cry. The idol had cried out all her tears before coming to join her friends. As the two staff members unpack the box, revealing a large, well-used television, Rise forces herself to look up and meet Naoto’s eyes. 

“I did exactly as you said, Naoto. I found Senpai’s spare key under the bowl of cat food, where you said it would be. But when I saw the TV sitting there, I thought – I thought maybe I should go in, just to have a look. To see if I could sense Senpai…or Adachi-san….confirm that they were actually in there.” 

The assembled members all suspect what she will say next. “They’re there. They were far away – deeper into the TV World than we’ve ever gone, I think – but I could sense them. Both of them.” The others nod, taking hope from the fact that they have at least partially identified their leader’s location – a hope that quickly vanishes with the next words out of Rise’s mouth. 

“They’re there….but Teddie’s not.” 

Chie gasps. Naoto’s eyes widen. “That damn Adachi…” Yosuke growls, but Yukiko holds up a hand to silence him, intent on hearing the rest of the idol’s information. 

“The world…it’s back to feeling all _wrong_ again. Like it was when the fog was there, only this time it’s not fog. It’s this great big awful red sun that makes everything look like it’s covered in blood….but….but there was _real_ blood too, on the grass by the exit. Blood and….f…f….fur. Teddie’s fur.” As she stammers out the last word, it becomes clear that Rise is not entirely done with tears for the day. The memory of that awful sight still clear in her mind, she sobs loudly and openly into Kanji’s proffered shoulder. 

Yosuke slams a fist onto the table, causing the old TV to rattle slightly. “That settles it. Adachi’s got them _both_ , and he did something to mess up the TV world again. We’ve got the TV, so let’s go in there _right now_. Partner and that stupid bear are counting on us!” 

“Calm down, Hanamura.” The switch to his last name is deliberate as Naoto enters full Detective Prince mode, her voice icy. “You’ve won your share of Olympic medals in conclusion-jumping today. Do you not see how far-fetched your…. _theory_ is? It is significantly more likely that both this change in the TV World and Teddie’s capture were caused by an outside source, an entity similar to Izanami or Ameno-sagiri. Senpai’s calls to us were probably attempts to enlist our help….though why he turned to Adachi-san for aid, even I cannot fathom.” 

“That’s…” But Yosuke never gets to say what he thought of Naoto’s theory as, just then, the Detective Prince’s phone rings. The private one. 

Never moving from his current position as Rise’s literal shoulder to cry on, Kanji extends a calloused hand towards his girlfriend, who takes it gratefully. The entire Team senses that this call can only mean further bad news. 

“Shirogane speaking,” the detective begins. “Yes. Yes, we’re in Inaba. No, we haven’t.” A pause. “I see. Thank you. Yes. Yes, please send the images along as soon as possible. Yes, this phone is capable of receiving them.” A second pause, longer. “I see. Tell her we are grateful for your support in this endeavor, and we will wait for your arrival before taking any further action. Our current base of operations is the Amagi Inn. Yes, thank you. Yes, we will. Goodbye.” 

“That was Akihiko Sanada, of the Shadow Operatives,” Naoto informs her eagerly listening Team members. “In his role as liaison between the Operatives and the police, he was allowed to examine the site of the disappearance, and has located what he believes to be a crucial piece of evidence: a cell phone. Dojima-san was able to positively identify it as belonging to Yu-senpai. Unfortunately, it currently lacks battery, so they have not been able to examine its contents for any further evidence. Still, he contacted Mitsuru Kirijo and she has determined that, as the situation involves multiple known Persona users, including one known to be antagonistic, she will be sending a team to support us. We are to wait to take any further action until the support team arrives in Inaba.” 

“What the hell!” Yosuke exclaims at the same time Chie shouts. “We can’t!” 

“Guys, _please_ ,” Kanji attempts to intercede. “The Shadow Operatives saved our asses a bunch during all that Grand Prix stuff. From what Rise said, it sounds like things are really dangerous over there.” 

“We already defeated Adachi once without their help!” Yosuke insists. 

“And Ameno-sagiri and Izanami too!” Chie adds. Rise nods wordlessly in support. 

“The matter is not up for discussion. We will wait on the support team…” Naoto trails off and fixes her gaze intently on her phone. “Yukiko-senpai, it seems as if the service in this room is inadequate for receiving the pictures Sanada means to send me. Is there somewhere in this building where the service might be stronger?” 

“Why don’t you come to the main office?” Yukiko suggests. “It should be fine there. Come on, I’ll show you the way. Then we can go by the kitchens and see what they’ve prepared for dinner – don’t worry, I didn’t do any of the cooking,” she promises with a smile. 

“You can’t carry all those dishes yourself, Yukiko-senpai. I’ll help.” Kanji gives Rise a final reassuring pat on the shoulder as he stands up and follows the two women out of the room. 

Once they are gone, a tense silence falls. Finally, Rise speaks up, her voice quiet but defiant. 

“We can’t let them wait, Senpai.” Neither Yosuke nor Chie knows for sure who she is addressing, but they both nod. “When I scanned for them, Yu-senpai’s presence…it was faint, like he was barely there. But Adachi-san….he was everywhere. It was like I couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning….no. Like the whole world was drowning in the rotten feeling of Adachi-san.” 

“We have to go. Now. Partner’s in danger, and he can’t wait on some Shadow Operative team to take the slow train to Inaba,” Yosuke insists. 

Chie nods. “With Rise-chan’s power, we can find him.” She smiles at the younger brunette. “And she can fight now too, so we’ve got three combat ready Personas to take on any Shadows….or any kidnappers.” 

All three nod. They know they have to move quickly – it won’t take Naoto long to receive a few pictures on her phone. Chie slips off her indoor shoes and removes a pair of heavy, spike-tipped boots from her bag. Yosuke slides his knives out from their customary place hidden inside his jacket – life might be peaceful these days, but he had become too accustomed to the feeling of being well-armed. And Rise slips what appeared to be no more than an ordinary microphone, but in fact had received several upgrades courtesy of Shadow Operative tech, into the purse at her side. 

“Let’s go,” says Yosuke, then sees no further words are needed as Chie is already head-and-shoulders deep into the TV. “Don’t look up my skirt, okay?” Rise teases as she follows her senpai, but the joke falls flat. Yosuke climbs in last, shooting a guilty last look at the door as he does so. He feels bad leaving their friends behind, but there’s no way to justify waiting around like that. 

Once inside the TV world, the three Investigation Team members waste no time examining the crime scene. The blood and fur only reminds them of the urgency of their mission. Rise’s nose scrunches up in disgust under her Persona’s eyepiece. “I can feel him. Adachi-san, he’s….he’s everywhere. It feels like slimy fingers crawling up my skin.” 

“Don’t worry about that. Focus on partner,” Yosuke pleads, and the idol nods. She remains still for a moment, then triumphantly exclaims. “There! It’s faint – he’s moved even further away from where I sensed him last – but he’s definitely there!” 

“No time to waste! Let’s get moving!” Chie summons Suzuka-Gongen with an energetic kick. “But….what are we going to do about Rise-chan? We might need her firepower when we find Yu, so we can’t just leave her here at the entrance.” 

“I’ve got it covered!” With a gesture, Yosuke signals for Susano-o to lift Rise and her Persona into its immense arms. Without delaying another second, the three Team members and their Personas race off into the red-tinged day.


	13. Awkward Reunion

Yu dodges under one of Futsunushi’s many swords, at the last moment executing a quick hop to avoid a second sword aiming for his ankles. He raises his own weapon, meeting the first sword with an ear-shattering _clang_. He feels the Persona’s godlike strength pushing against him, knowing he cannot hold this position for long….

…but he doesn’t have to, as a blast of fire from Adachi’s Surt catches the distracted Futsunushi full in the back. The Persona twists away with a scream, and Yu returns his sword to his side, letting out a laugh highly unsuited to the situation. 

By all rights, he should be terrified. The mob of Personas that had descended upon the pair at what he would guess to be just past midday is the strongest they’ve seen yet. Familiar foes like Kali and the Pale Rider are accompanied by the likes of Yurlungur, Sandalphon and the now-defeated Futsunushi – Personas he’d needed months of bonding with friends around Inaba to summon. 

And yet, Yu Narukami fights with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, despite the unaccustomed soreness in his lower back and tailbone. Though the red sun had risen again, he carries something of the starlit blue night within him. Even the pain is just a reminder of how whatever vicious thing controlled that bloody orb had been weakened, while he and Adachi had strengthened, their bond consummated, their task now faced not as grudging allies but as a willing pair. 

Adachi had woken him with a kiss, some time after the rising of the red sun. Both men had been nude, sated, but fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep. As Yu tucked himself closer against Adachi’s side, his lover had reached down beneath the blanket and found him almost painfully aroused. Only the leader’s reluctant reminder that they had another day of searching ahead of them had stopped them from immediately re-enacting the events of the night before. 

Aboard an unfamiliar dragon Persona of Adachi’s, the duo had left the site of the previous day’s many events behind with more than a little reluctance. The ride hadn’t been _entirely_ unpleasant, however. Adachi had ridden behind Yu, and kept his companion’s face flushed with teasing whispers and gentle touches, mere brushes of those talented fingers against his chest and groin. And though perhaps neither had been watching the ground below as intently as they should, both pairs of gray eyes had picked up on the clue when it appeared beneath them. 

Yu had confirmed that the bloodstained scraps of white cloth belonged to Teddie’s favorite shirt – that frilly, awful white thing that Chie had bought him with Yosuke’s money. Though he couldn’t be sure, Adachi’s forensic knowledge led him to hypothesize that the tears in the fabric had been made by blunt, human nails, rather than the claws or teeth of some monster. The former detective had thought it more than likely that Teddie, though wounded, was still alive, conscious, and fighting to leave every bit of a trail he could. Yu had rewarded him for his deductions with a succession of happy, if salty, kisses, and though Adachi called him a sentimental idiot, sharp tongue quickly gave way to soft lips as he kissed every joyful tear from Yu’s face. 

They’d continued on foot, and it had soon become clear that they were indeed following a deliberate trail. The clues Teddie had left were usually more scraps of fabric, but, occasionally, the pair was greeted by a grislier marker – scattered drops of the bear’s blood. Adachi had taken Yu’s hand at the first of those, and did not release it even as they left the crimson-stained grass far behind them. 

The criminal had been kneeling to inspect the latest bit of shirt-fabric when the horde of rogue Personas had fallen upon them. Unlike the earlier groups they had encountered, these had not been attacking each other at first, but instead fixed on the two humans as their desired target from the beginning. That could mean worrisome things regarding their enemy’s knowledge of their movements and actions, or its control over the TV world – but neither man had allowed himself to care yet. Instead, both Yu and Adachi had thrown themselves almost eagerly into battle. 

Yu’s Seiryu cries out as it finds itself tangled in Yurlungur’s coils. The leader switches out for a High Pixie, small and light enough to escape the grasping worm, then immediately switches a second time, crushing the opposing Persona beneath the bulk of Legion. 

Unlike their first two battles, where they had used desperate, last-ditch attacks to survive by the skin of their teeth, here the duo has had the upper hand since the beginning. Both men switch Personas with ease and grace, observing and anticipating the other’s moves. It is as though their night together really had created an unbreakable bond between them. Perhaps it had, Yu muses. After all, he’d forged similar connections with his friends through far less intimate actions. 

Yu pauses to catch his breath as his Legion makes quick work of the enemy creature. He takes advantage of the momentary lull to observe Adachi. All of the clumsiness the other man had displayed while on the job as a detective seems to have vanished in the TV World – whether from increased combat experience or increased confidence, Yu could not say. The criminal’s limbs are too long and his form too gangly for his movements to be called graceful, but he moves with purpose and deadly intent. Yu watches with an expression of undisguised appreciation and lust as Adachi looses two bullets, shooting two Mothmen out of the sky in quick succession. In the same fluid motion, he lowers his raised arm, bringing the gun down butt-first onto one of the fallen Persona’s heads.

Futsunushi attempts to rise to his feet again, but is stopped by Adachi. As the man aims his gun a third time, he shoots Yu a flirtatious wink. Both bullet and wink hit their intended targets – Futsunushi’s now-useless legs crumple beneath him, and Yu feels a tingling heat rush through his body in two directions at once. 

An impossibly beautiful woman leans over the downed Futsunushi. Yu’s heart rises into his throat as he recognizes Ishtar. As she presses a kiss to the metallic warrior’s cheek, he rises again, all traces of Adachi-inflicted wounds vanished. 

Yu closes his eyes, mentally sorting through his own list of Personas, trying to recall Ishtar’s weakness. A memory surfaces; Rise’s voice echoes in his mind. _Man, senpai, that’s my Arcana’s Ultimate Persona? Looks like I’ve got some competition!_ He’d tried to redirect the not-so-subtle flirting towards a discussion of skills. _Don’t worry, Rise. This Persona blocks lightning. Izanagi couldn’t land a hit on her._ And then Yosuke had said….had said….

_Looks like she’s weak to wind. Does that mean_ I’ve _got a chance, Rise-chan?_ He can’t recall what happened next – likely Rise had slapped Yosuke, or Chie had kicked his legs out from under him before the idol even got a chance to react. But it didn’t matter. 

“Wind, she’s weak to wind!” Yu shouts at Adachi, preparing to summon Odin as he does so. However, before the leader can call out a single attack, the horned woman raises her arms above her head, hips swaying in some sort of ancient dance. White light illuminates the battlefield, momentarily penetrating the crimson gloom. As one, the defeated Personas rise, uninjured. Yu’s stomach sinks to somewhere around his toes. Had his feelings of invincibility and strength merely been overconfidence after all….? 

And then Adachi is behind him, long fingers holding Yu’s shoulders in a death grip. His voice is steady in Yu’s ear, though the leader can feel the barely controlled tension radiating from his lover’s lean form. 

“Seems like we’ll be ending this with one big move again,” the former detective says, his voice as artificially calm as he can make it. “At least nobody can say we’re not consistent in our strategy.” He laughs, but the laugh is too short, too high-pitched to be genuine. Yu is uncomfortably reminded of the other man’s mad cackle echoing off the blood-colored walls of Magatsu Inaba. 

“I was thinking,” his lover continues, outwardly as casual as though the pair are simply chatting about what they will have for dinner. “that we could try that thing again. You know, from that time on the roof.” He doesn’t have to say anything more for Yu to know which roof he means. 

The leader now understands why his companion is so tense. It’s a huge gamble. Even now, long after the fact, neither man is entirely sure _what_ exactly happened that time. Somehow, without command from their users, the two Izanagis had resonated with each other, their powers combining into something far greater than an individual Persona. The resulting attack had cut down the fiery horror threatening them with a single strike. But Adachi’s return to jail had prevented any further experimentation. Trying to recreate that attack again now, with both men’s lives on the line and zero planning or preparation, makes the rest of their danger-fraught journey seem like a stroll along the Samegawa. 

But, once again, they are left without a choice. Yu places a hand on top of Adachi’s, briefly squeezing before reluctantly stepping out of his companion’s embrace. The leader closes his eyes, briefly sorting through the array of tarot cards in his mind. He grips his first Persona’s card as tightly as he had gripped Adachi’s hand a moment ago, feeling that familiar sense of security and strength flood through him. A small amount of his earlier calm returns. Izanagi has never failed him. Even when he stood alone against the ragged corpse that had once been a beautiful goddess, the silver warrior had come through for him. 

Gray eyes meet. Yu nods. Adachi’s answering smile is shaky, but his hands are steady as he tosses his own deep blue card skyward. As it falls, he smashes it with the butt of his borrowed gun, crushing it into dust. Despite the chaos around them, Yu can clearly hear the other man’s determined shout mingling with his own.

“Magatsu…” 

“Izanagi!” 

Two shadows fall over the battlefield. Under the crimson sun, both Izanagis appear red. Yu shares a momentary look of panic with his companion, realizing that they have no idea how to actually set off this attack, no name to call out to indicate what their Personas should do. 

There is no need. The two facets of a single god draw their swords in unison, charging forward and downward towards the cluster of enemy Personas. Ishtar half-rises from where she had been kneeling over a downed Mothman, her long blonde hair rippling as the Izanagis disturb the air with their passing. 

A moment later, the air is burning. 

A noise like an immense _crack_ rolls across the red-tinged world. Charred scents assault Yu’s nostrils. The lines between the dark Izanagi’s sword and the bright’s shudder and collapse, until it seems that there is not two weapons descending, but one – a sword crafted not of metal, but of pure lightning, yellow and red and eye-blindingly radiant. 

Spots dance at the edges of Yu’s vision, refusing to clear away even as he blinks repeatedly. Suddenly, a hand not his own is in front of his face, shielding his eyes from the blinding power. Though he can no longer see it, he can feel it – feel the power of the two Izanagis building and burning within him. He realizes that this rush of pure, vital heat is not a new feeling. It started the first time he called Izanagi to him and reoccurs with each new Persona he creates. It’s like watching a friend’s Shadow fade away to nothing and yet also like feeling the bond between them reach its final strength. It’s the rooftop and the Midnight Stage and Nanako’s ragged breaths as some kind fate returned her to him. And it’s something Adachi has made him feel over and over again, from their first kiss to the climax of their starlit encounter. The power is thrilling, life-sustaining, yet too much all at once, and he stumbles and falls and cries out - 

-and Adachi is there to catch him, the hand not over Yu’s eyes wrapping tightly around his waist. The leader is pulled backwards into the protective circle of his lover’s arms, hears the other man’s hummingbird-quick heartbeat and knows that the same feelings are running through Adachi’s body as well. He notices almost detachedly that they have both grown hard, and hopes that his mind hasn’t created some weird neural connection that causes lightning storm or Zio attack in his future to provoke a sympathetic reaction. He tries to say something to the other man – a thanks, an apology, anything – but his throat is dry and his mouth filled with an ashy aftertaste, and he is sent into a coughing fit instead. 

The power burning within him has not faded, but in Adachi’s arms he is stronger, able to ride the wave of sensation instead of merely being carried along in its path. Eyes still squeezed shut, he manages to find his way to his lover’s lips, and they kiss as lightning arcs around them. 

When the lightning-sword’s angry crackle has at last faded, the two men disengage from their crushing embrace. Yu gasps for breath, the hot air stinging and burning his throat. His fingers tingle with the remnants of the combined Personas’ too-intense power. He feels dizzy, burnt-out, hollow, like he’s running on the last dregs of energy after days without food or sleep. Wetness trickles down one leg, and for one terrible moment he fears that Izanagi’s power has literally split his skin open – then he realizes with a flush of embarrassment that it isn’t blood, that he had somehow come in his pants without noticing. Luckily, his lover seems too busy recovering from a coughing fit of his own to make any kind of snarky comment. 

Yu turns, blinking away afterimages so bright and painful they seem seared into his retinas. The air is thick with the heavy, nose-clogging scent of superheated metal, reminding Yu of the inside of Daidara’s store. At first, he thinks the large swath of black cutting through the grass at his feet is Izanagi and Magatsu Izanagi’s shadows. Then he realizes that the Personas are gone, and the black patch is grass left charred and burnt by their attack. 

Other than the black patch, there is no sign of what had happened. The rogue Personas hadn’t melted into goo or even dissolved into dust – they have simply vanished, as though they were never there to begin with. A ragged laugh bursts from Yu’s still-raw throat. He’s sore, exhausted, dizzy, and uncomfortably sticky, and he doubts Adachi is in much better shape, but they’d done it. They’d won. The entire horde of enemy Personas was gone – and now that they knew how spectacularly that attack worked, even the thought of future battles like this one doesn’t seem quite so frightening. 

The dark-haired man looks up at the sound of Yu’s laugh. Yu catches him by the wrist and drags him in close, allowing each to lean on the other for support. “We did it,” the leader rasps, his voice weak yet filled with genuine joy. “Tohru, _we did it_. We won.” 

The former detective presses dry, cracked lips against Yu’s forehead. “We did more than win, kid,” he murmurs. “Any rogue Persona for miles around would have felt that, if not seen it. They’ll think twice about challenging us now – and the ones that don’t will get their own chance to eat a little lightning.” 

Adachi’s statement hadn’t been particularly funny, yet Yu feels another laugh building in his chest. He sags helplessly against Adachi, burst after burst of laughter making its way painfully from his torn throat. Some still-rational part of his brain points out that he’s hyperventilating and should probably stop, but the rest of him is too exhausted to care. He realizes that there’s no way either of them will have the energy that night for an encore performance of the previous one. This is funny to him too, and he collapses to his knees, bent double with laughter. 

Yu hears a sizzling noise behind him, too loud to be just a few stalks of still-burning grass. 

The laugh dies in his throat, emerging instead as a choked, tight cough. Adachi pounds on his back with a fist as the silver-haired man tries to get the words out, tries to warn his lover of the imminent danger. 

“Turn….around….” he finally manages to croak. “She’s still…..”  
Adachi turns, keeping his arm around the younger man’s shoulder, as Yu still seems too exhausted to move under his own power. Two pairs of gray eyes widen in fear as Ishtar rises from the charred grass, unharmed, ash smearing her cheeks and the curves of her horns. The two Mothmen she had been in the process of healing buzz around her head like sinister-blank eyes angels. White-hot sparks begin to gather in her outstretched hands, and Yu remembers too late that the Lovers Persona was not solely a healer, but packed a powerful electric punch of her own. 

He reaches blindly within himself for a Persona, any Persona, but he barely has the energy to raise his trembling hand to his face, let alone crush a card or call a name. Beside him, Adachi is similarly spent, his sweat-drenched forehead resting against Yu’s shoulder as though the weight of his own head is too much for him. They are going to die, Yu realizes. Their last-second, all-or-nothing gamble had failed, stymied by something as simple as high Electricity resistance. 

Yu manages another painful breath. At least his body will appear somewhere in Inaba, providing his friends and family with some closure. At least he will die with Adachi’s hand in his own. At least his last few breaths will be of clean, fresh air, as the last of the ash is blown away by the rapidly strengthening wind. 

Wait….

_Wind?_

A gust as powerful as a tornado barrels into Ishtar, knocking her off-balance. She releases the lightning from within her cupped palms, but the attack shoots harmlessly upward, filling the red sky with sparks. Before the horned woman can recover, a massive Persona moves in front of her, her delicate form overwhelmed by red and blue and swirling silver. Yu blinks, and Ishtar is gone, leaving only the new arrival. He’s sure it’s familiar, but his too-tired brain refuses to put a name to the sunglasses-clad face.

The two Mothmen buzz around the large Persona, emitting irritated chirps. It – he? – swings at them with immense hands, but the insectoid creatures are too small and agile, and dodge the attacks easily. One flutters out of the big Persona’s reach, diving towards Yu’s face with wings outstretched. 

_“Hi-yaaaaaaaaaah!_ A green blur collides with the Mothman, knocking it from the air before it can reach its destination. It vanishes before it can reach the ground. The sole remaining Mothman, having seemingly realized the danger of the situation, attempts to fly away, but makes it only a few feet before something glittering and silver is tossed into its path. The projectile hits its target, pinning the Mothman to the ground by a wing. 

_Nice one, senpai!_ chirps a voice in Yu’s head. He turns to Adachi, his mouth open to warn him that the latest wave of attackers can somehow _talk_ , but finds the other man still staring fixedly forward. He realizes that Adachi had not heard the voice, and, ever-so-slowly, Yu Narukami’s exhausted brain begins to fit pieces of the puzzle together. 

Still, it is only when a lanky figure steps forward, bending to retrieve the thrown knife from the fallen Mothman’s wing, that the leader finally, truly understands what he is seeing. 

“Yosuke?” he croaks, disbelieving. 

Partner! It is you! What are you doing on the ground?” The energetic man extends a hand, and Yu allows himself to be pulled to his feet. The brunette eyes him critically, taking in his slumped shoulders, his ash-smeared face – but, Yu hopes, _not_ the stain slowly spreading across the front of his pants. “You look like a mess! What did that bastard _do_ to you?” 

“What did _I_ do to him? More like, what were those monsters trying to do to us!” Adachi snaps. Yu sees that his companion has managed to climb to his feet without assistance. 

“Yeah, and you’d be dead if we hadn’t jumped in at just the right time. Not that we were trying to save _you_ , especially after you broke out of jail and kidnapped our leader” Chie responds, driving her right boot into the prone Mothman’s side as if to illustrate how she would have preferred to greet Adachi. The last enemy Persona fades away, but Yu knows that the battle is not yet over. The air feels heavier now than it did in the final seconds before the Izanagis’ sword had unleashed its lightning. 

His friends are _here_. In the TV World. Somehow, despite each and every one of them ignoring his calls, they had pieced together what had happened and come to help. Judging from Chie’s red face and Yosuke’s ragged panting, they had rushed to save him as soon as they had finally understood that something was wrong. A warmth fills his chest as the leader realizes that his friends still care, that they still want to fight, that they’re still his _team_ …. 

…that they’re glaring at his lover with looks of pure hatred, seemingly mere seconds away from planting a knife or a spike between Adachi’s wide-set gray eyes. 

“No,” he rasps. “It’s not him. He’s my….we’re….he’s on our…he’s helping me. We’re…the sun, a crow, _Teddie_ ” Everything is spinning, and he has to push each word out as though he’s speaking through a mouthful of syrup. But he has to tell them, he has to make them understand… 

“You hurt that dumb bear AND partner? That’s it! You’re done!” Yosuke leaps forward, all long limbs and pent-up energy, a knife in each hand pointed directly at Adachi’s throat and heart. Yu can barely move, the air has turned to syrup to match the stuff in his mouth, but he forces himself to keep going, moving between Yosuke and Adachi, reaching for his partner, protecting his lover, the world spinning around him…. 

He catches Yosuke’s wrist, jerking him to a stop inches from Adachi’s face. A look of hurt and betrayal blossoms in his best friend’s wide brown eyes. “Partner, why….” 

_Senpai!_ He can’t see Rise, but her voice is in his ear again, drawn thin with worry. _Senpai, you’re hurt! Your heartbeat’s speeding up, your temperature’s dropping….somebody heal him! NOW!_

But Rise’s shout comes too late. All at once, the crimson sky is spiraling away and the ground is rushing up at him. His legs are buckling, his head is spinning, and he can’t seem to make his mouth work properly. His last bit of energy gone, Yu falls into a dead faint at Yosuke’s feet. 


	14. Unsatisfying Compromise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I am so sorry this chapter took so long to write. However, with the announcement of P5's release date in Japan, I have decided to set myself the goal of finishing "Necessity's Bedfellows" before September 15, 2016. Wish me luck!

Yu awakens to something tentatively brushing against his face, soft and feather-light. For one wild moment, he thinks he is being kissed awake again. The illusion is shattered when a trail of water runs down his cheek. Whatever is touching him is far too wet to be a pair of human lips. The leader opens his eyes – despite lids that feel as though they weigh approximately a thousand pounds each – to see Rise gently wiping his forehead with a towel. 

The idol is so engaged in her task that at first she does not notice when he opens his eyes. When the flutter of eyelashes against her wrist alerts her to Yu’s awakening, she lets out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a yelp. 

“Senpai!” 

“Ri….se…” His voice cracks. His throat feels raw, burned, as though he had swallowed a lightning bolt whole rather than shooting it at enemy Personas. His limbs are as weak as jelly; his entire body seems to be shaking.

No. Wait. That part, at least, isn’t in his head. His entire body _is_ shaking – because they’re moving. 

With herculean effort, Yu manages to tilt his head slightly to the side. Immediately, he wishes he hasn’t. The ground is far away – not as high as when he had been flying on Seiryu, admittedly, but still a dizzying drop. 

“Where are we?” he manages to croak out despite his parchment-dry tongue and blistered lips. His mind strains to pick out the last thing he can remember. The battle….the two Izanagis…the lightning coursing through his body, so powerful he had felt it would kill him….then the unexpected arrival of his friends…

…And Yosuke, pointing his knives at Adachi’s throat, Yu fainting before he could force himself between them. 

“Toh…” He catches himself at the last minute. Given how one of his teammates had recently tried to stab Adachi in the throat, he doubts that they’d be thrilled to learn of their newfound closeness. “Adachi-san. Is he okay?”

“What the hell, partner.” Yosuke’s accusatory statement seems to be coming from somewhere above him. He blinks up into the red sky, but sees nothing. “You ask about _him_ first? Did he mess with your mind when he kidnapped you?” 

“Lay off, Yosuke. He’s obviously not right in the head. I mean, he _passed out_ back there,” Rise snaps. She returns her attention to Yu, toweling sweat from his forehead and neck. 

“Since Captain Ressentiment up there doesn’t seem to want to answer, I suppose I’ll explain his _brilliant plan_.” The idol’s blatant sarcasm makes Yu chuckle, an action he instantly regrets as a line of fire makes its way down his scorched, too-tight throat. 

“After you fainted, Yosuke-senpai grabbed Adachi-san. He wanted to kill him right there, and would have if Chie-senpai and I hadn’t pointed out that Naoto needs to interrogate him about how he managed to break out in the first place.” A fond smile crosses her face. “Man, I’m glad Chie-senpai is in police training now, or else she’d have been on _his_ side and things might have gotten ugly. Anyway, Chie-senpai found some rope in one of your bags and tied up Adachi-san. Suzuka-Gongen is carrying him to make sure Yosuke-senpai doesn’t try anything. She wanted to have her Persona carry you too, but Yosuke wouldn’t hear it. Anyway, between Suzuka-Gongen and Susano’o, we should be back at the entrance before you know it. We’ll turn Adachi-san over to Naoto and Sanada-san and get you to a hospital while Kirijo-san’s team heads in to retrieve Teddie. You can rest now, Senpai. It’s okay. You’re free, and this will all be over soon.” 

It takes her words far too long to pierce Yu’s fog-wrapped brain. When they do, he lets out a gasp twice as painful as his earlier chuckle had been. “Rise, _no_ ” he manages to choke out. “It wasn’t him.” 

She laughs, high and light and painless. “That’s what Yosuke-senpai said you’d say. He’s got this crazy elaborate theory about Adachi-san’s Persona having secret hypnosis abilities. Chie-senpai’s got the right of it, though, I think…” The idol trails off, obviously selecting her next words with care. “Senpai, we absolutely love how you always try to see the best in people. It meant you were able to see past _our_ Shadows, after all. And I know you want to think that Adachi-san changed after what you say happened during the Grand Prix, but some people…some people are just beyond even your reach, Senpai.” 

“You saw!” Raising his voice makes his esophagus feel like it’s being slowly torn from his body, but he needs Yosuke to hear this, needs Chie (wherever she is) – needs them both to see reason. “I know you never believed me about Adachi helping during that big fight on the rooftop, but you must have seen the attack just now. Adachi wasn’t attacking me – we were fighting together against the rogue Personas. He’s on my side. Our side. There’s no brainwashing, no kidnapping. I _asked_ him to help me, because Teddie was missing and none of you CARED!” 

The shouted last word sends Yu into a coughing fit. Rise hurries to retrieve a bottle of water from the bag at her side. As she unscrews the cap, Susano-o’s progress grinds to an abrupt halt. Lukewarm water spills over the lip of the bottle, soaking the idol’s hands and the leader’s shirt. Rise mutters a very un-idol-like curse as Yosuke leaps from Susano-o’s shoulder into his immense palm. 

“Partner, _please_.” His voice is raised, but beneath the rage Yu hears something scared and desperate, hears the plea rather than the admonition. “We’re sorry we weren’t there when you called, but it’s okay now. We’re here. We’ll help you. You’ve got us…you don’t need _him_.” 

For a terrifying second, Yu almost finds it in himself to hate Yosuke. He sees how easily his best friend’s determination and dedication to those he loves can bleed into obstinacy, a willingness to move through life with his eyes squeezed shut. He knows that although Yosuke has grown so much since the day he pulled him from the trash can in front of Yasogami High, so many things about him – the wonderful and the frustrating both – remain the same. The leader feels hate rising like bile in his throat, feels angry words clawing at the roof of his mouth, desperate to escape into the tension-laden air. 

Yu breathes deeply, closes his eyes, and pictures the star-studded blue night. He feels the phantom sensation of Yosuke’s fist crashing into his face that day on the bank of the Samegawa, and reminds himself that that had been as much a gesture of love as Adachi’s lips on his own. 

When he finds it in himself to open his eyes and face Yosuke again, he does not shout or argue or defend or cajole. He merely voices the one simple fact that he hopes desperately can change his partner’s mind. 

“Adachi-san is a Wild Card now. He’s more valuable to us here than in jail.”

For a long moment, neither Yosuke nor Rise breaks the silence. Finally, as if responding to some unspoken command, Susano-o begins to slowly lower the hand in which the three of them are cradled. When the Persona’s palm is resting against the ground, Yosuke wordlessly extends a hand to help Yu to his feet. 

A solid thud comes from Yu’s right – the sound of boots hitting the ground as Chie jumps from atop her own Persona. Behind her, she drags the bound and handcuffed form of Adachi, irritated but uninjured. 

“Adachi-san!” Yu tries to keep the relief out of his voice. Chie deposits the tied man on the ground, not-so-accidentally booting him in the side as she does so. Yosuke chuckles darkly. The leader opens his mouth to reprimand his partner, but is stopped by Adachi. 

“Kid….” The silver-haired man turns, smiling, towards his lover, his mouth brimming with apologies and promises of better treatment. Then he sees the icy glare in Adachi’s gray eyes, the long-absent sneer returned to his face, and the sweet words die in his throat. 

“It’s always nice to know I’m wanted, but who said I had any interest in helping your gang of do-gooders? Your harem’s here now; you’ve got slut, brute, and closet case to dance attendance on you in hopes of favors and kisses – you surely don’t need _me_ around. I think it’s time for me to take my bow. _I’ll_ exit, _you’ll_ pursue the bear.” 

“Wait. I don’t…that’s not…” He can’t understand it. It’s as if the arrival of his team had caused the new, gentler Adachi, the Adachi that Yu had fallen for, to vanish entirely. 

Dread sits like a ball of cold iron in Yu’s stomach as a thought occurs to him. Perhaps that Adachi had been only an act after all, as fake as the goofy policeman who often slipped up and gave out too much classified information. Were Yosuke’s suspicions correct? Had the arrival of his team served only to shatter a charade? 

_He did._

_You’re beautiful like this, fuck, you’re perfect_

_Yu, I…._

Had the entire thing – their first kiss, the Velvet Room, the starlit consummation – been no more than lines on a script to Adachi? 

No. He can’t allow himself to think like that, allow his friends’ fears to overtake him as well. Rise was right – he _did_ always try to see the best in people. And the parts of himself Adachi had finally allowed Yu to see were too new, too _right_ , for the leader to let them go without a fight. 

Still, he finds himself unable to look at Adachi’s face when he speaks again. Instead, he focuses on the upper part of the man’s neck, on the bruise left by Yu’s teeth the night before. He remembers how _right_ everything had felt for that brief time, and brushes away the moisture beaded at the corner of one gray eye. 

“We had a deal, Adachi-san.” He struggles to keep his voice firm, to sound like the leader Yosuke, Chie and Rise expect him to be. “And even if you no longer wish to honor that agreement, I don’t feel comfortable being the sole decision-maker as to whether you stay or go. As my partner suggested, I, er…perhaps I have been rather hasty and subjective in my judgments of your character, having spent so much time in…. _tense_ situations with you lately. Your newly awakened Wild Card abilities are valuable to our cause. Until we rendezvous with Naoto and the Shadow Operatives, you will continue to accompany us…” The next words stuck in his throat like Yukiko’s cooking, but he made himself say them. “…but you will remain handcuffed except in battle situations where your aid is required.” 

He shakes as he walks, his legs still seeming to be composed of jelly rather than bone, but he waves away Yosuke’s proffered hand. The leader stops in front of Chie and her prisoner. The scant inches between his own body and Adachi’s somehow feel like a gulf of a hundred miles. 

Yu doesn’t let himself meet Adachi’s eyes again. He knows the other man’s sneering gaze will break him down, leave him a sobbing wreck. He can’t afford to show weakness in front of a team that already doubts his mental stability. 

Instead, he extends a hand towards Chie, palm up. “I’m assuming you’re the one who’s got the key to those, Police Trainee Satonaka?” He tries to keep his tone light, tries to pretend this is just another foray into the TV World with his team. _Everything is normal,_ Yu thinks. _How can anything be wrong when my team is here?_ Even within his own head, the words ring hollow. 

“What, boss-man, you think I’d trust _Yosuke_ with it?” the fighter jokes. She tosses the key underhand. With a sad twist in his gut, Yu recognizes it as the same wrist motion Chie uses when she tosses the Chariot tarot card to summon her Persona. It’s the little things like that that make him realize how much he has missed his friends. 

Despite his still-unsteady limbs, the silver-haired man catches the key easily. He takes Adachi’s left hand, gentler than he intends to, and deftly fits the key into the miniscule lock securing the cuffs. The metal loop opens with a barely audible _click_ , and the killer’s left hand falls to his side. The dark-haired man immediately begins flexing his long fingers, trying to restore feeling to the limb. Adachi’s sleeve slips down with the movement, allowing Yu to catch a glimpse of a red ring where the cuffs had rubbed his flesh raw. The younger man has to clench his fist to stop from reaching out, from taking the wrist into his hand and covering it with kisses. 

“Sen-“ Rise starts to call out, but he shakes his head, cutting the idol off before she can even finish the word. 

Instead, he forces himself to focus on the task at hand. Slowly, deliberately, he transfers the now-empty cuff to his own left wrist, closing it with a second, much louder _click_. With his still-free dominant hand, he returns the key to a dumbfounded Chie, who is so busy gaping at her leader’s actions that she almost misses the catch. 

“As partner said, I’m the one who involved Adachi-san in this business, so, the way I see it, it’s my responsibility to keep tabs on him until the rendezvous. Later, anyone who thinks they take being cuffed to him without committing any acts of physical violence can have a shift.” Rise giggles at this – strained and too high-pitched, but noticeably an expression of amusement. Even Yosuke cracks a half-smile.   
“A heroic gesture from our Kingpin of Steel,” cuts in a sardonic voice from Yu’s left. “Now that that’s settled, why don’t we all sit down and braid each other’s hair, or have a group sing-along, or….oh, I don’t know, _talk about the fact that thanks to the Junes Disappointment here, we’ve completely lost the trail that we were following!_ ” 

Yosuke blinks at the criminal, stunned speechless for once. When he finally opens his mouth, his voice is small, defeated. “….What trail?” 

Yu rubs his eyes with his free hand. “Unfortunately, partner, Adachi-san’s right. Teddie must have known that somebody was following him, because he was dropping clues along the way – bits of cloth and hair and…b-blood…” He stumbles over the last word, remembering how Adachi had held him and kissed his stubbornly closed eyelids when the trail had gone gory. “We were following the trail when Ishtar and those other rogue Personas attacked us. But you’ve taken us back towards the entrance…in the opposite direction from Teddie.” 

Chie scratches her head, round, kind face set in an expression of intense concentration. “Wait, Yu, that doesn’t make any sense. When Rise picked up your signal, you were super far out – way further into this world than any of us have ever been. We….well, Yosuke and I, at least…we freaked out a bit because we thought we’d never be able to reach you in time, even with our Personas moving at full speed. But somehow, as we kept going…your signal was getting _closer,_ not further away. Whatever trail Teddie was leaving, it must have been leading you two back the way you came.” 

“That’s right!” Yosuke pipes up, seemingly desperate to contribute anything productive to the conversation. “At first, we were sure it’d take days to find you, but you kept moving toward us, and your signal was going _way_ faster than Susano’o and Suzuka-Gongen could run. Your change in direction was the only reason we got to you before Ishtar could zap you.” 

Rise nods, pigtails bouncing against her shoulders. “Whatever….or _whoever_ …” Yu does not miss the dark, mistrustful glance she shoots in Adachi’s direction, “it was that kidnapped Teddie seems to be leading you around in circles.” 

“But why would a monster that wants to keep Teddie away from us move back _towards_ the entrance?” Yu ponders. “Adachi-san theorized that Teddie was in his human form when he was abducted, and the creature _knew_ he was weaker like that. If it’s that smart, it must realize that more people can come through that way.” 

“Unless….” Rise’s face pales, and she begins to sway slightly, as though she and not Yu was the one who had fainted earlier. Yosuke places a steadying hand on her shoulder; rather than pushing away, the idol leans into the contact. “Unless it…or he… _knows_ other people are going to come through.” 

To the leader’s surprise, it is the criminal currently cuffed to his side that continues Rise’s train of thought. “That’s a smart move on its part.” He emphasizes the _it,_ practically spitting the word in the cheery navigator’s face. “It – and presumably its rogue Persona army – get between us and the team that you’re supposed to meet up with. Maybe it even gets in a surprise attack before we can catch up, or warn them.” 

“What do we do?” Rise’s expression is one of abject horror. “Naoto-kun…Kanji-kun….Sanada-senpai and his team….”   
Chie lets out a strangled gasp as the reality of the situation hits her. “ _Yukiko_ …..” 

Yu feels his heartbeat speed up. Bile rises in his throat. His friends are in danger, and he, the brave leader, the one who always had a solution ready….has nothing. His mind is still running in circles like a dog chasing its tail, fixated on questions entirely unrelated to their current plight: _Why is he acting like this? Was it all just pretend? How can I talk to him, how can I make things right again?_

Perhaps because he alone of the assembled group has no personal connection to the endangered party, it is Adachi who remains levelheaded. “We need some kind of distraction. Something to pull the monster’s – or at least its army’s – attention back to us. Something big and loud and crazy, that would _also_ let your tardy friends know where we are so they can meet up with us before they’re crow food.” 

“Shut _up_!” Yosuke shouts, slamming his fists against his denim-clad knees. “We get it, you don’t give a shit about Naoto or Kanji or the Operatives or _any_ of us, but can’t you at least be _quiet_?” 

“Wait, Yosuke.” To Yu’s surprise, it’s Chie who strides forward, grabbing the brunette man by the shoulders and giving him a firm shake. “As much as I hate to admit it….Adachi-san’s right. A distraction _is_ what we need right now. Some way of shouting ‘hey, we’re here, pay attention to us instead of those others’ at the bad guys.” 

Rise looks speculatively at the handcuffed criminal, though it is Yu she addresses. “Senpai, Adachi-san’s comment about us ‘sitting down and having a group sing-along’ gives me an idea.” Her voice is casual, but Yu can hear the tension running through it like a finely tuned guitar string. “Do you remember that time we helped out Kanamin Kitchen with that little problem of theirs?” 

Yu’s eyes widen as he realizes what she’s getting at. “But would that work, here?”

Chie grins, almost predatory, as she too catches on to Rise’s idea. “I don’t think it would be anything as spectacular as that light show you and that jailbird produced earlier, but I think it would at least _hurt_ the rogue Personas. And if not hurt, then _annoy_ them – they wouldn’t like it, they wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Plus, it would definitely make enough noise for the other team to find us even if they don’t have a navigator with them.” 

Yu can’t help it. A matching wicked grin creeps onto his own face as Rise withdraws her special amplified microphone, the latest and greatest in Kirijo Group technology, from the bag at her side. “What do you think, Senpai?” the idol inquires. 

“What? What plan? What’s going on?” In his confusion, Adachi briefly drops his callous attitude. 

For the first time that day, Yu finds himself able to ignore the handcuffed criminal. With his free hand, he points at Rise like he’s one of those overly hammy announcers who always open her concerts. 

“Hit it!”


	15. Deliberate Provocation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. I hope you enjoy regardless!

Yu isn’t sure where the music comes from. Perhaps there’s something within Rise’s mic, some sort of small chip that stores the backing tracks for her usual repertoire. Or perhaps the music is coming from somewhere within Kanzeon, the throbbing beat bouncing and reverberating off the elegant Persona’s concave head to echo across the red-dyed hills. 

Rise tosses the mic from hand to hand, nodding along with the rhythm, silently counting her way through the intro. It’s one of her most popular songs, and Yu and the rest of the Team had helped her perform it at that long-ago event which had turned into one of their wildest adventures to date. The silver-haired leader knows the backup dancer choreography by heart – but he hopes that Rise won’t mind a little improvisation. He plans to accomplish more with this dance than merely attracting rogue Personas or alerting Naoto’s team to their location. 

“She’s not kidding…” Adachi grumbles from Yu’s left. “I know I was the one who suggested a distraction, but…. _really_? You’re going to _dance_?” The criminal _humphs_ in disgust and tries to cross his arms over his chest. His efforts are stymied by the handcuff still linking him to Yu, and he is forced to settle for placing his unbound left hand on his hip as he glares at his smirking captor. 

“No,” Yu responds, tugging gently on the handcuff linking the two men. “ _We’re_ going to dance.” 

“No. No way. Uh-uh.” The dark-haired man digs the heels of his brown work shoes into the dirt, attempting to indicate with his body language that he is staying exactly where he is. 

Rise begins to sing, and Yosuke and Chie spin easily into the well-practiced moves that had once saved them on the Midnight Stage. Yosuke actually _laughs,_ sounding happier –or at least less stressed – than he had since he first met up with his partner and his unlikely companion. 

“Come on, partner,” the brunette teases. “Can you keep up, or are you going to let that jerk hold you back?” 

Yu doesn’t respond – at least not verbally. Placing his one free hand on his hip in a mirror of Adachi’s angry pose, he begins swaying to the beat, deliberately emphasizing each movement of his hips. Adachi is still staring fixedly at the ground, but Yu can tell that his companion is acutely tuned in to his every action. 

The leader keeps his movements small at first, subtle, gentle – nothing that would tug on the handcuffs or force Adachi to move. He runs a hand loosely through his own hair, attempting to keep up the semblance of calm despite his racing heartbeat. He lets the fingers of that same hand trail down his face, across his lips, along his neck and over his collarbone until they curl into the front of his shirt, resting where a dance partner’s hand might. Yu does not look at Adachi, but he can feel his companion’s eyes following the hand’s progress as though mesmerized. 

Without warning, he raises his other hand – the bound one – over his head and spins it in a wide circle. Caught off guard, Adachi is forced to spin as well. The clumsy, long-legged man trips, landing practically in Yu’s arms. The leader is pretty sure the blush dusting the former detective’s cheeks isn’t just wishful thinking on his part. 

“So,” he murmurs, confident that the others can’t hear him over Rise’s singing and the pounding beat. “You going to explain to me why you’ve been acting like….well, like last night never happened?” The words come out more accusatory than Yu had intended. 

“What,” Adachi practically spits, pushing on Yu’s chest to try to put distance between them. His efforts are stymied by both the handcuffs and Yu’s free hand, which has come to rest lightly on the killer’s waist. “Like being all lovey-dovey with you around _them_ would accomplish anything other than make them doubly convinced I’d brainwashed you?” 

Hurt, Yu stalls for time by spinning out and away from Adachi, letting the beat carry him. The cuff limits his mobility, and he finds himself pulled inexorably back into his former position. Despite the two men’s closeness, the leader has to shout to be heard as Rise belts out the song’s chorus. “I mean, you didn’t have to…” he doesn’t vocalize his next thought, but he indicates the bruise on Adachi’s neck with his eyes “…or anything, but you could have at least been a little _nicer_. Said _something_ to convince them you were on our side, that you _want_ to help solve this!” 

This time, it’s _Adachi_ who raises their bound hands, forcing Yu into a spin. The criminal’s next words are a hissed whisper punctuated by a pointed look in Yosuke’s direction. “Hanamura wouldn’t have believed it.” 

Anger flares within Yu. Without thinking, he draws his hand back as though to slap Adachi across the face. The other man ducks, making the move seem as if it had been merely part of their dance. “Look, I know partner’s a little impulsive, but…” 

Adachi shakes his head. He places his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, “No, Yu, think about this. Really _think_. Who came up with the idea that I had brainwashed you in the first place? Who jumped into the TV to rescue you from my ‘dastardly plan,’ without waiting for the Detective Upstart’s approval? Kujikawa may have a heart bigger than her Persona's weird head, and the force may have taught Satonaka _some_ semblance of patience, but….your beloved ‘partner’ sees what he wants to see.” The criminal steps back, as far as the handcuff will allow, and spreads his arms to the side in a gesture of defeat. “I killed Saki Konishi. You think he’s ever going to forgive me?” 

The leader’s heart breaks. He wants to say _it’ll be okay,_ wants to say _That’s not true_ ….but lies like those had been what plunged Inaba into the fog in the first place. 

So instead, Yu does what he has always done best: cuts directly through to the truth. “ _Tohru_.” He knows that using the other man’s first name is a bit of a dirty trick, but he does it anyway. “Why are you trying to make me hate you again?” 

Adachi’s eyes widen, and for a moment, the all-too-familiar mask of the hapless, harried detective snaps across his features. It’s that snowy day in the hospital all over again – the words are even the same. 

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about!” 

Yu steps closer, wrapping one strong arm around the former detective’s waist, hoping that Yosuke and Chie are too preoccupied with their own dance moves to notice. He stares into the grey eyes of the man he has fallen for: the first person who understood the burden of his power, the first person he’d ever met who shared it. His first enemy. His first lover. His Tohru.   
“Yes,” he says simply. “You killed Saki Konishi. Mayumi Yamano, too. You stood by and let my friends get kidnapped, because it amused you. You lost the battle the Velvet Room contracted you to fight, and your friends died because of that.” 

Adachi looks down, tries to squirm out of Yu’s grasp. His voice when he responds is hard, all bitter edges and tired, habitual self-loathing. “Yeah, I’m a murderer, what’s…” 

Yu doesn’t let him finish. With his free hand, he grabs his lover by the chin, forcing him to make eye contact again. “Yes. You’ve killed. You’ve hurt people. I hated you for years. Yosuke still does, and probably some of the others too. But you keep trying to reduce yourself to _just_ that, and I’m not going to let you. I proved to Izanami that people can’t just be defined by a single trait, a single experience – a single true self. When that crow monster attacked, you abandoned your Phantom Thief games and stood and fought, even though you knew you had no chance of winning. You were there for Nanako when she was lonely, long before I ever was. You helped us out back in Tartarus, knowing Minazuki would kill you for it if he got half a chance. You helped me _now,_ when nobody else would. Do you think your powers coming back was an accident, Tohru? No. _Someone_ in the Velvet Room looked past the wrong you’ve done and saw the hero in you – just as I did. Just as I _do_.” 

Yu leans forward and brushes his lips against Adachi’s cheek – briefly, lightly, far from the kiss he wants to give. He whispers into his lover’s ear, trying to distill everything he wants to tell him into a few simple words, hoping desperately that it’s the right thing to say: 

“You killed Saki Konishi. You saved Yu Narukami. Neither erases the other.” 

He steps back, letting Adachi have the space to process his words. He expects to be shoved further back, expects the other man to turn away and withdraw into the shell of his self-doubt. 

Instead, Adachi reaches for Yu with his unbound hand, lacing their fingers together like he never wants to let go. Slowly, awkwardly, shyly, the dark-haired man begins mimicking the simple pattern of steps Yosuke and Chie had started the song with, wordlessly accepting Yu’s invitation to dance with him at last. 

Yu’s heart swells, sending heady joy racing through his veins until he’s pretty sure the handcuff is the only thing keeping him on the ground. He mirrors Adachi’s movements, keeping to the basic steps he had learned under Rise’s tutelage. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yosuke and Chie challenging each other with increasingly flashier spins and kicks, neither paying the slightest bit of attention to the two men. For a single, perfect moment, he lets himself get lost in the feeling of dancing with his lover. 

There is no grace in their dance – their heights do not match, both men are exhausted from days of seemingly endless battle, and the handcuff limits which moves they can successfully execute. Yet, as Adachi briefly grips Yu’s waist to keep him on his feet after a spin, the stoic leader lets out an open, whooping laugh, feeling as giddy as a child on the first day of summer vacation. Yu feels this bond within himself – in some ways still tentative and new, a flower still in bud , yet at the same time iron-strong and sun-bright. He feels this bond and realizes in that moment that he will do anything to protect it. 

He hopes he won’t have to sacrifice all his other bonds in the process – but, increasingly, he feels as though, if it came down to a choice, he would.   
His friends are dancing together now. Chie, predictably, is leading – less “leading” really than “dragging Yosuke around by the shoulders”. To Yu’s surprise, she leads her hapless dance partner in a wide circle around himself and Adachi. The brunette fighter releases one of Yosuke’s arms, sending him spinning outwards in a shallow arc, orbiting her as she orbits her leader and his lover. It’s a blatant show of strength, so typically Chie that Yu finds himself openly laughing for the second time in as many minutes. 

Adachi’s piercing gray gaze darts in the direction of the brunette dancers. The first time, the look is so quick that Yu is certain he must have misinterpreted the emotion he sees in the former detective’s eyes. Then Yu’s lover looks at the pair a second time, and a third, and the leader knows that he is not wrong. 

He moves close to the other man, positioning his lips against Adachi’s ear in the guise of leaning in to untangle the handcuff chain. Once he is sure Yosuke and Chie cannot hear him, he whispers “Are you sure all that self-deprecating stuff earlier wasn’t also because you were….perhaps, just a little bit… _jealous_?” He keeps his tone light, teasing, letting the other man know that he is neither upset nor accusatory. 

The reaction he receives is both instantaneous and _wonderful_ , and Yu stores the image away in his brain for repeated re-viewing. Adachi’s cheeks redden, his mouth drops open, his brows snap together in an expression of immediate rebuttal, even as his eyes and hands betray him by yet again peeking in the direction of Yu’s team members and curling more tightly into the silver-haired man’s shirt respectively. 

“Of course I’m not….why would I be….I don’t get……..jealous” Yu raises an eyebrow in obvious disbelief, and the last word of the half-hearted denial fades away nearly to nothing.

The dark-haired man tries again, switching to a new tactic: defensiveness. “Well, who wouldn’t be?” he demands, eyeing Chie as she kicks a leg so high over Yosuke’s head that the wind user barely has to duck. “I mean, _look_ at them. Every single one of them’s at least a little bit in love with you.” The expression on his face could almost be described as a _pout,_ and it takes every bit of willpower Yu possesses not to kiss it away. 

Still, Adachi’s response has left him with a perfect opening, and the smirking leader isn’t going to let it go to waste. He leans close a second time, whispering words for his lover’s ears alone. “Well, I’m at least a little bit in love with _you,_ so there’s no need to be jealous.” 

Yu is not entirely sure if he will ever get tired of seeing Adachi blush. He has a sneaking suspicion that the answer is no. 

Before Adachi can respond, Rise’s singing abruptly pauses, replaced by her Persona-amplified voice in Yu’s ear. “Senpai! Rogue Personas, over the next hill, headed our way! They’re moving slowly, though – I think it’s working! The dancing’s not enough to beat them, but I think we’re affecting them!” 

Instinctively, Yu reaches to undo the handcuff, but Yosuke’s shout stops him. The brunette has stopped dancing, both hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. _A winded wind user,_ Yu thinks, and snorts at his own mental pun. “No, partner, what are you thinking? We can’t trust him yet!” 

The leader opens his mouth, ready to retort, but is saved by Chie. 

“Stupid reasoning aside, Yosuke’s right. We can’t risk sending you and Adachi-san out when you’re still tapped out from that crazy lightning earlier. I mean, you _fainted_ and he nearly did. Yosuke and I will take these. You two stay here. You both need the rest.” Yu nods, grateful for Chie’s new levelheadedness allowing them to avoid an argument. 

“Senpai, should I stay here with you two or back them up?” Rise inquires over the pounding drum of the instrumental track still echoing from who-knows-where. 

Yu sneaks a look at the man handcuffed to him, notices that the flush of red has not yet left his lover’s cheeks. He makes what is probably the most strategic decision for completely un-strategic reasons. “Follow them, Rise. If anything shows up that’s got a weakness the three of you haven’t got covered, you can call us.” 

He presumes that the idol nods in response, though he cannot see as her face is covered by her Persona’s visor. Yosuke’s Susano’o easily picks up both Kanzeon and Rise in its powerful arms, and, within moments, the three brunettes and their Personas are racing over the hill towards the battle. 

At the top of the hill, Yosuke pauses and turns back. The spiky-haired man cups his hands over his mouth, shouting back down at his partner. “If he tries any funny business, let Rise know and I’ll be back here to deck him faster than you can say Garudyne.” Though it’s far from _nice_ , to Yu’s ears the words sound more like a taunt than an actual threat. He shoots his partner a wordless thumbs-up, but Yosuke has already turned around, seemingly trying to beat Chie to the battle. 

With the others safely out of sight, Yu allows himself to slump against Adachi’s shoulder. Exhaustion from his earlier fainting spell wars with exhilaration at his reconciliation with his lover, leaving him lightheaded but not unpleasantly so. It still feels as though the loop of metal at his wrist is the only thing keeping him from floating off amidst the red-tinged clouds. 

“Well, Chie’s probably right,” Yu murmurs, his voice muffled by the cloth of Adachi’s sweat-stained white shirt. “I’m not one to sit out a battle, but I _did_ faint earlier.” 

“Oh?” Adachi draws the word out, as though it tastes sweet in his mouth, and the hairs on the back of Yu’s neck stand up as he senses the other man’s wicked intent. “But you still _can_ help your friends, Mr. Leader, and I don’t _really_ believe you’d ever sit idle while that was the case.” 

“Tell me more,” Yu encourages, despite his exhaustion. Though the hilly terrain blocks most of his view of the ongoing combat, he hears Yosuke’s indistinct shout, followed by a whoosh of wind as one of Susano’o’s attacks connects. 

“We- _ell_ ,” Adachi pulls him closer, wrapping his free arm around Yu’s waist, gently worrying Yu’s earlobe with his lips and teeth. “Kujikawa may be a bit of an airhead, but she _did_ seem pretty certain that what we were doing was weakening them.” He bites down on the lobe he had been teasing, and it takes every scrap of Yu’s willpower not to let out a moan. “And who says we need music to…?” The former detective’s words trail off before the sentence is complete, but his intentions are more than clear. 

Yu knows that he is probably blushing as red as his companion had been earlier, but he cannot find it in himself to care. “Why, Tohru,” he teases right back. “Could it be that you’re asking me to dance?”   
Instead of answering with words, Adachi pulls Yu’s body flush against his, strong arms wrapped firmly around his lover’s waist, one hand not-so-subtly settling itself on the leader’s rear. Yu retaliates by lacing his own arms around the dark-haired man’s narrow shoulders, resting his head against Adachi’s chest. For a moment, their dance is peaceful and sweet, as both men sway gently to the beat of some imaginary song. 

It doesn’t stay innocent for long. Yu is incredibly aware of their hips pressed together, of Adachi’s racing heartbeat, of the wandering of that long-fingered hand. Then that hand _squeezes_ , and a low growl escapes from Yu’s throat as he presses his hips forward, against heat and hardness and far too many layers of cloth. He twines one of his hands into Adachi’s dark hair, plants kisses at his collarbone, the base of his neck, before moving upwards to seek his lips. He’s aware that this can barely be called dancing anymore, and a tiny part of his brain wonders whether “making out while swaying back and forth” has any effect on enemy Personas. 

A loud whoop that could only come from Chie echoes across the red-dyed hills. “Your friends could be back any second,” Adachi whispers, Yu’s lips on his neck turning his warning into a breathy moan. 

“Don’t care,” Yu responds, stroking his free hand up and down Adachi’s sweat-damp back. “Want to touch you.” 

“It’s going to be hell, being literal inches from you without being able to do this,” the former detective admits. 

At this, Yu presses his mouth to his lover’s in a fierce kiss, trying to communicate with lips and tongue the breathless, delirious joy those words had made him feel. When they break for air, he softly rubs his cheek and nose against the other man’s. “So you’ll stay, then?” Yu is pretty sure he knows the answer, but he has to confirm. “You’ll stay and fight with us? Even though the others are here now? Even though…even though they gave you the chance to back out and leave peacefully?” 

Adachi responds by giving Yu’s rear another firm squeeze. “I thought I’d made that pretty clear,” the criminal teases. 

Yu sighs contentedly, rocking his hips forward and enjoying the small noises Adachi makes in response. “I wish we could just tell them,” he admits. 

To his utter surprise, his suave, snarky criminal does not respond with a taunt or joke. “Just…give it time, okay?” he asks, completely sincere. “I can’t promise that they’ll ever warm up to me, let alone trust me, but…I’ll try.” 

Yu moves his arms lower to wrap Adachi in a crushing embrace. “Thank you,” he whispers into his lover’s ear. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you_.” 

“Okay, alright, Yu, stop, I can’t breathe…” Adachi insists, but Yu can hear the laughter and affection in his lover’s voice, and he feels the other man’s arms wrap around him in return. Where that embrace might have led – to further kisses, certainly, and perhaps more – neither man gets the chance to find out, as just at that moment Rise’s Persona-transmitted voice interjects with less than optimistic news. 

“We got them all, Senpai.” As before, she speaks only into Yu’s mind, forcing him to relay her message to Adachi. “It was easy - _too_ easy. Compared to the ones you were fighting when we found you, these were small fry. Chie-senpai guesses that they were sent to keep us occupied, keep us from getting to the entrance where the stronger ones are waiting to ambush any reinforcements that come through. It seems like whatever’s behind this didn’t fall for our plan.” 

Yu’s heart sinks. He suspects that the plan’s failure will only cause his team to suspect Adachi all the more, though Rise’s use of ‘whatever is behind this’ instead of ‘ _whoever_ ’ does provide him with some sliver of hope. 

“Do we head to the entrance, then, Rise?” he asks her, voicing the question aloud as well as mentally so that Adachi can keep up with the conversation. 

“No,” the idol responds. “I wish we could, but one of them – some skeleton guy with a sword – managed to land a pretty nasty scratch on one of Chie-senpai’s legs, and it looks infected. Between that and you passing out earlier, we can’t afford to move on right now.” 

Yu clings to Adachi for every last second that he can until his friends arrive, as though his lover’s embrace can cancel out the dire news he’d received from Rise. “Alright. You guys come back, and we’ll fix up Chie while we decide what to do next.” Reluctantly, he separates from his lover, until the cold metal of the handcuff is the only connection remaining between them. 

“We’ll get through this, Yu,” It’s strange to hear _Adachi_ of all people being the voice of reason and optimism, but the leader appreciates it all the same. “Tatsumi’s questionable, but Shirogane’s no idiot, and I saw those Shadow Operatives in action back then – they’re kind of scary powerful. They’ll survive whatever the enemy throws at them.” 

Yu nods. Hearing such reassurances from his lover helps him feel at least slightly more confident – for a moment, he can almost believe that it’s all going to be okay. That Naoto’s team will make it into the TV world and meet up with them unscathed. That Chie’s wound will heal, that they’ll catch the creature behind this, that Teddie will turn up somehow unscathed. Even that his friends will accept his and Adachi’s relationship. 

After all, this journey has brought him one miracle so far – perhaps there will be more yet.


	16. Fragile Bonds

Yu’s heart lurches into his throat as his friends stagger over the hill.

Their Personas have vanished, testifying to the exhaustion of the fight combined with their headlong race to ‘rescue’ him from Adachi. Yosuke’s arms are hooked around Chie’s shoulders, while Rise holds the fighter’s muscular legs. One of those legs has been torn open from knee to ankle, blood trickling downward in lazy rivers to stain Chie’s boot and sock. Yu can see the wet gleam of exposed muscle, a flash of white that might be bone, and turns from the grisly sight as he had from the drops of Teddie’s blood earlier that day. 

“Steady,” Adachi whispers, though he does not touch him – dares not, though Yu’s friends are probably too distracted by the injured Chie to notice. “She’s not unconscious, and, even if it is infected or poisoned, it hasn’t started rotting or leaking pus yet. That’s the best sign we could hope for in this situation.” 

Yu nods, unable to force out words past the solid lump of grief and fear in his throat. He’s seen his friends hurt before, of course – healed each of them more times than he can count, even restoring them to full health from the barest fragment of raggedly breathing life – but the intervening years since his defeat of Izanami have softened those memories somewhat, made them faded and bearable. This is real, visceral, right in front of him, stinking of death and putrefaction. There is something raw and awful about seeing Chie’s legs, the very thing she uses to defeat her enemies and protect her friends, so badly damaged. 

He knows he needs to step forward, to be the leader that his team expects, but he finds he cannot. Instead, he gratefully leans on Adachi’s expertise, letting the other man’s training and years both on the force and leading his own team of Persona users take over. 

“Lie her down,” Adachi commands, not taunting or mocking but speaking with an air of authority that reminds Yu painfully of his uncle. “Hanamura, elevate her head. Kujikawa, try to get some water into her.” 

To the leader’s surprise, his friends obey, Yosuke placing a rolled-up towel under the barely conscious woman’s head as Rise dribbles lukewarm water between her slightly parted lips. Chie’s tongue weakly exits her mouth to lap at the water, and the small sign of movement and awareness causes a flicker of hope to ignite in Yu’s heart. 

“I tried to heal her, partner, but there was this big mob of Pixies attempting to scratch out my eyes, and by the time I cleared them all away, Susano’o….I had nothing left,” Yosuke admits, his voice uncharacteristically small. 

“And Kanzeon can’t produce anything powerful enough to deal with….this,” Rise gestures at the fetid-smelling wound with her free hand. “I was able to scan her and get the message through to you before I ran out of energy – it’s definitely poison.” 

“Alright,” Yu finally manages to croak out the single word. He steps forward, Adachi trailing behind him at the end of the handcuff’s chain. He begins mentally running through his list of Personas, trying to remember if he has any that can both heal and remove the poison. “I can-“ 

Yosuke shakes his head. “No, partner, you can’t. She needs a Diarama at _least_ , plus whatever gets rid of the poison. You already fainted earlier – you’ll drain yourself completely if you do this too.” He digs through one of the bags of supplies, desperately searching for bandages or anything that can serve as such. “We don’t have any items, either – Naoto will bring some stuff from Shiroku, I’m sure, she’s always prepared like that, so we’ll have to wait. We can try to bandage her up—“ 

The criminal takes a single step forward, the chain clinking softly as if to announce his movements. “I can heal her,” he says, still with that commanding, Dojima-like note in his voice. “I didn’t overextend myself as much as Mr. Hero back in that earlier fight, so I should be fine. And even if I do conk out, I’m not nearly as valuable to our efforts as him.” Through the fog of his exhaustion and worry over Chie, Yu can hear the affection hidden within the supposedly taunting words. Despite everything, a slight smile creeps onto his face.   
“What are you talking about?” Yosuke demands, flinging a sealed plastic bag of cabbage leaves and several sticks of beef jerky over his shoulder in his frantic search for bandages. “Unless shocking Chie with lightning will magically fix her leg, that weird scary Persona of yours can’t do a thing.” 

Rise rolls her eyes, reaching over Chie’s prone form to flick the brunette man on the forehead. “Do you ever _listen,_ Yosuke?” she inquires. “Senpai said earlier that Adachi-san developed a power similar to his. Which means that he has a lot of Personas now. Like healing ones.” 

Adachi nods. “Yu, uncuff us.” The leader flinches at his lover’s slipup, hoping against hope that Rise and Yosuke don’t notice the too-affectionate use of his first name. His partner seems too absorbed in flinging food items willy-nilly to hear, but the more perceptive idol shoots a suspicious gaze in his direction. Yu resolutely refuses to meet her eyes. 

Instead, he focuses on the simple, mechanical task of removing the handcuff key from his pocket and locating the small keyhole. He realizes that in order to remove the metal circle around Adachi’s wrist, he will have to take his lover’s hand in his own to hold it steady. The flushed cheeks and racing heartbeat that would surely come as a consequence would only further the suspicions he believes Rise already possesses. Not good. 

Rather than risk the contact, the silver-haired man instead turns his own left hand palm-up, inserting the key into the tiny hole located just over the cluster of raised purple veins in his wrist. He frees himself with a _click,_ , leaving the apparatus dangling from Adachi’s wrist like some sort of bizarre bracelet. Yu massages his newly freed wrist, flexing his stiff fingers. He appreciates the increased blood flow to his hand even as he finds himself oddly missing the restraint. Though the cuff had been far from comfortable, rubbing and chafing his skin with nearly every motion, it had provided some small connection between himself and Adachi, even at times when his team’s presence prevented actual contact. 

“Partner, that’s not a good-“ Yosuke, predictably, objects to his behavior, but luckily Rise shushes him. She shoots the Junes heir a scathing look as she smooths the hair back from Chie’s sweat-soaked forehead. 

“This is our only shot at healing Chie-senpai, and Yu-senpai knows that. Just be quiet, will you?” Yosuke, having seemingly abandoned his search for bandages after flinging nearly all their food supplies out onto the grass, crosses his arms and glares in response to the idol’s harsh words. 

Ignoring both brunettes, Adachi seats himself next to Chie’s prone form, not close enough to touch her but close enough that his nose wrinkles at the foul scent of the poisoned wound. He holds out his hand – the left one, unencumbered by the handcuff – and wordlessly summons a midnight-blue tarot card inscribed with the symbol of the Priestess. In battle, Yu had seen his lover disintegrate cards with the butt of his gun. Now, likely aware that reaching for his gun would provoke a negative reaction from Yosuke, the criminal simply crushes the summoning tool in his fist. Within seconds, the tall, elegant form of Kikuri-hime hovers over the barely conscious Chie. 

The three Investigation Team members watch wordlessly as light swirls around their injured teammate. When it fades, the wound is still there, but the ragged flesh edges have faded from a violent red to a more normal pink. The putrid smell is also gone, replaced by the weaker but still foul odor of sweat and the coppery tang of blood.   
“There’s the poison gone,” Adachi states matter-of-factly. “Now the healing.” 

Light surrounds Chie again, brighter this time, covering her entire body. It lasts for several seconds, and Yu, unable to tear his eyes away from his lover and Chie, finds himself having to blink away bright spots from the edges of his vision. When the light finally does vanish, Adachi slumps to the ground, exhaustion evident in the sag of his shoulders and the hang of his head. Kikuri-hime vanishes as the former detective reaches the limits of his power as well. 

Yu’s common sense fails him, and he rushes to his lover’s side. At the last moment, practically feeling the weight of Rise’s gaze upon him, he adjusts his course slightly, trying to pretend that his goal had been Chie the entire time. He takes one of the fighter’s hands in both of his own, squeezing slightly. “Chie? Chie, can you hear me? Are you awake?” 

Her wide brown eyes flutter open, and the leader lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Though she looks as tired as he feels, there is a smile on her face and no sign of pain in her expression. A glance down at her leg confirms that the wound has closed completely, only a fine pink line remaining to mark where it had been. 

“Sorry, Yu. I let my guard down and one of those skull guys got me.” She grins sheepishly, and Yu cannot help the small smile that creeps onto his face in response. “Lucky this happened _after_ we met up with you and all your Personas. Thanks for the healing, boss.” 

“Oh, I-“ the leader begins but, to his surprise, Rise interrupts before he can get out even a sentence. 

“It wasn’t Senpai who healed you, actually. It was Adachi-san.” 

“Oh.” Chie sounds surprised to hear this, but, to Yu’s great relief, neither upset nor disgusted. She turns to look at the former detective, and her words are awkward but sincere. “Uh….Well, thanks, then.” 

Yu’s smile widens slightly. Maybe, just maybe, he will get his miracle after all. 

Of course, Yosuke is the next to speak, ruining the quiet, peaceful moment. Yu feels resentment stir in his chest once again, and realizes for the second time that day how terrifyingly easy it is becoming to feel these kind of emotions towards Yosuke. 

“Great. He did _one thing_ without _murdering_ somebody, and he gets _thanks_ for that?” The brunette stands, towering over his seated companions, arms crossed tightly over his narrow chest. 

“Did you recognize that Persona, partner? It’s the one you got when you helped Yukiko figure out what she wanted to do with her life, when she got Amaterasu. How does that feel, Chie? That this jerk had some ‘bond’ that was probably fake and full of lies and NOTHING like partner’s with Yukiko, and he used the Persona he got from it on _you_.” He steps closer to the slumped form of Adachi, one fist clenching and unclenching as though barely restraining himself from reaching for one of his knives. 

“What kind of act did you put on, with your ‘bonds’?” Yosuke spits, sarcastic. “The kind friend? The listening ear? The goofy cornball who doesn’t know what he’s doing? Bet they ate it up, didn’t they? Just like all of Inaba did, for a _year_ , until we ripped your mask off. Tell me, Adachi – did you kill her, too? The girl who got you this Persona?” 

Yu sees his lover try to rise, but fail, exhaustion overtaking his body. His lover keeps his gaze fixed on the grass, refusing to raise his gray eyes to meet Yosuke’s accusatory glare. 

At first, Yu thinks he is not going to say anything, to let the words roll over him like waves without dignifying Yosuke with a response. Then, as he watches Adachi’s shoulders tighten and draw inward, he thinks that the other man is going to play it off, respond with a mocking laugh or cruel comment as he had been wont to do in the past. 

Instead, Adachi speaks in a tight, controlled voice, artificially level and neutral, as if riding the edge of tears but unwilling to give in and cry in front of the Investigation Team. 

“Her name was…is…Makoto. Everyone who knew her would say that she was quiet and reserved, the perfect honor student. But she had fire in her, just like your Amagi – but a mouth that would make your little Inn princess blush.” A faint smile crosses his face in response to some memory triggered by his words, before abruptly vanishing at his next statement. “Yes, she’s dead. I didn’t kill her in the way you’re thinking – no gun to her head, no television – but my actions got her killed.” 

He pauses again, and for a moment Yu thinks he is finished speaking. Then he continues, still in that too-neutral voice. “Her Persona was a motorcycle. It helped her realize that she loved them. Decided to hell with the college her parents picked out for her – she was going to become a professional racer.” Finally, he looks up, haunted gray eyes staring past his lover and meeting Yosuke’s stare directly. “You’re right, Hanamura. I killed her. I was the first one she ever confided her dream too, and I’m the reason it’ll never happen.” 

Awkward silence reigns. Yu knows that with every second he remains still and does not move to embrace his lover he is being as cruel as Yosuke. Still, fear, doubt and confusion paralyzes him, and he remains crouched next to Chie. Belatedly, the leader realizes that he still has the fighter’s hand clasped in both of his, and had been squeezing it deathly tight throughout Adachi’s speech. Embarrassed, he drops it, letting the hand fall to Chie’s side. The brunette looks at the clear red marks left on her palm by the pressure of Yu’s fingers, but makes no comment. 

It is obvious that none of them knows what to say. Even Yosuke seems deflated, bereft of a snappy comeback in the face of such honesty. Yu opens his mouth, trying to find something calm and leader-like to say, some way to defuse the tension, but his mind is preoccupied with his desire to hold and comfort Adachi, and no words come out. 

Finally, Rise, ever big-hearted and kind to a fault, breaks the silence. “You were like Senpai, weren’t you?” she asks. Unlike Yosuke’s barbed words, hers are merely inquisitive, curious, no accusation held within. “When you were younger. You had a team, like….like us?” 

The former detective nods, then shakes his head. “Yes, I had a team. No, I wasn’t like him. I was never the leader he is. I…” he seems ready to say something else, but changes his mind at the last moment. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Yu isn’t sure what would have happened next – would Rise had pried further? Would Yosuke have made another accusation, unsatisfied even by the small piece of Adachi’s truth that had been revealed to him? Would he have said to hell with consequences, and run to his lover’s side and run fingers through his sweat-stained hair as he covered his drawn, haggard face with kisses? 

The leader never finds out what _would_ have happened for, at that moment, the tension is shattered by the most mundane, the most shockingly _normal_ of occurrences. Chie’s stomach growls, as loud and insistent as Teddie after another failed attempt to ‘score’. 

Yu knows this is far from the right moment for it, but he cannot help it. The sheer _normalcy_ of the sound, after Yosuke and Adachi’s tense standoff, is too much. He laughs, the same loud, whooping, unrestrained laughter that only his lover’s presence seems able to bring forth.

Chie places her hands over her stomach. “Sorry, guys,” she says, without a single trace of genuine apology or contention in her voice. This sets Rise off as well, the idol giggling nearly as loudly as Yukiko as genuine tears of hilarity run down her pale face. A second, equally loud grumble has Chie joining in, practically rolling around on the ground as she continues to clutch her stomach in a combination of hunger and mirth. To Yu’s delight, even Adachi chuckles quietly at the patently ridiculous sight. Only Yosuke, his face still set in an expression of tense anger, seems unaffected by the group’s merriment. 

“Satonaka’s stomach makes an excellent point,” the former detective remarks through his laughter. “Would I be correct in assuming none of you have eaten since entering the TV?” 

Rise nods, having seemingly regained some measure of control over her laughing fit. “It….wasn’t the first thing on our minds, yeah.” 

Yu raises an eyebrow at the cheery idol. “Wait. You said that you jumped straight into the TV as soon as you brought it to the Inn. Did you even think to bring….supplies…. _anything_?” 

The three brunettes shake their heads, even Yosuke having the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry, Senpai,” Rise responds. 

“It’s okay, Rise!” Chie grins as she begins digging through the pile of foodstuffs that Yosuke had scattered around earlier. “Of course boss man here is completely prepared. Though….” she examines the sealed bag of cabbage leaves with a frown, “you didn’t happen to bring any steak, did you?” 

Yu shakes his head. Yosuke’s continued silence and angry expression unnerves him, but the leader clings to the everyday topic of food like a lifeline. He holds out a fistful of beef jerky to the fighter. “Will this be an acceptable substitute?” 

Chie eagerly grabs the dried meat sticks from his hands – only to immediately begin pelting them at her team leader. “Yu Narukami, you take that back right _now_!” the energetic girl demands, striking him square on the chest with another spicy-scented projectile. “I thought we were _friends_. I thought we were _teammates_. But you dare to suggest, after knowing me for years, that I might find _beef jerky_ to be a suitable replacement for STEAK?” 

Yu laughs again, raising his hands in front of his face to shield himself from the onslaught of meat. He recognizes her overblown reaction as a further attempt to defuse the tension, and eagerly plays along. “Hey, ow, Chie, stoppit, it’s not my fault! _He_ made the grocery list!” The leader points at Adachi, unashamedly attempting to shift both the blame and Chie’s ire away from himself. 

The fighter responds by wordlessly growling and flinging the entire remaining handful of jerky at Adachi. Unlike Yu, the dark-haired man does not manage to get his hands up in time to defend himself, and most of the sticks strike him directly in the face. Yu lets out another burst of laughter at the utterly shocked expression on his lover’s face – apparently, Adachi has never experienced a steak-deprived Chie before. 

“Well, that explains all _this_ ,” Rise remarks, holding up the neglected bag of cabbage. She roots through one of the bags Yosuke had not scattered, withdrawing two identical packets of pale green leaves. She follows her upperclassman’s example, flinging one of them squarely at Adachi’s chest.

“I know you’re used to shopping on a budget of zero,” she scolds the former detective, “but Senpai has actual money, you know?” 

“I knew _that_!” the older man responds, matching Rise’s indignant tone so perfectly it nearly sends Yu back into hysterics. “It’s….I….well, it was never about the budget. I…I actually really like cabbage” he admits quietly. 

For a single moment, perfect silence falls over the red-dyed landscape. Chie, Rise, Yu and even Yosuke gape in wordless shock at Adachi’s admission. A small, insistent part of Yu’s brain wonders if they had been quite this stunned on that long-ago day in the hospital when he had accidentally admitted responsibility for the Inaba murders. 

Then, laughter breaks out again – Rise’s giggles, Chie’s loud whoops, the small, stifled chuckles Adachi tries to pretend aren’t coming from him. The idol tosses the two remaining cabbage bags at Yu, slowly enough that he manages to catch them rather than being smacked. 

“Well, Senpai, you were the one who went along with his ridiculous shopping list, _and_ you’re the only one here who can cook. So, by my reckoning, it’s up to you to atone for your mistakes by crafting us the most delicious and energy-restoring dinner possible.” 

“Alright, Rise,” Yu eagerly agrees, desperate to prolong this moment as long as possible. Any moment, he fears that Chie and Rise will realize they had been interacting with Adachi just like they would any normal person who _hadn’t_ committed multiple murders. 

To his surprise, Adachi stands, handcuff jingling, and takes the packets of leaves from the leader’s hands. “No, let me. I’m the one who asked him to buy all the cabbage, so doesn’t that make it my responsibility to turn it into something good for you all?” 

Yu cannot suppress a smile. His lover really _is_ trying, _is_ working to show Yu’s friends that he has made a change. Pride and affection set his heart racing, and it takes him nearly a full minute to realize that he is kneeling motionless on the ground, arms still outstretched, grinning dopily in Adachi’s direction. Under Rise's far-too-knowing gaze, he quickly drops his gaze and begins scurrying around to clean up the beef jerky Chie had thrown. 

The criminal withdraws a bottle of sesame dressing, shakers of salt and pepper, and a small container of rice vinegar from one of their bags, along with a sturdy pan and several disposable plates. Yu pauses in the process of returning the beef jerky to his bag to notice Yosuke’s still-angry glare following the other man’s every movement. He remains motionless, as if frozen in place, and for a moment Yu almost convinces himself that things are going to be okay, that Yosuke will merely watch in silent disapproval. 

Then Adachi takes a cutting board and knife from the bag, and Yosuke moves. Quick as the wind he commands, the brunette crosses the grass and grabs Adachi’s wrist in a death grip. 

“Drop. The. Knife.” Yosuke practically spits the words out from between his tightly clenched teeth. 

Adachi holds up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. “Please, Hanamura,” he snaps, his sharp words at odds with his submissive posture. “Would you really rather suffer Satonaka’s cooking than let me have a knife to _cut some cabbage leaves?_ ” 

“Yosuke…” Rise tries to cut in, but the taller brunette cuts her off. 

“Fine,” he snaps. He releases Adachi’s wrist and holds his hand out, palm-up, towards the criminal. “Give me the knife. I’ll do the cutting.” 

“Be my guest,” the former detective shrugs as he hands the tool to Yosuke. His words are dismissive and calm, but Yu notices his lover’s shoulders relax ever so slightly – he had been scared that Yosuke meant to hurt him. “Yu, can you open some of that jerky? I don’t want to be the target of Satonaka’s wrath for serving a zero-meat meal.” 

Yu nods, attempting to focus on the simple task Adachi has presented him with. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the knife in Yosuke’s hands as his partner cuts up the cabbage with steady, rhythmic movements. Silence descends again, tenser this time. 

“So….you can cook, Adachi-san?” Rise asks tentatively, as though she is afraid the criminal (or more likely the man cutting cabbage beside him) will attack her for speaking. 

“Cabbage,” Adachi clarifies. “I can cook cabbage. And noodles, I guess. But I’m nowhere near your beloved Senpai’s level. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who ever invited myself over for dinner when _he_ was cooking.” Chie and Rise’s sheepish grins are all the answers he needs. 

“That explains why you never actually caught any criminals,” Chie declares. “Sanada-senpai says that the three most important things you need to be a cop are protein, protein, and protein.” She ticks off the ‘items’ on her fingers as she lists them. 

“I think…” Yosuke starts, and Yu prepares himself for another vicious onslaught. His traitorous brain, all too eager to assume the worst after his partner’s earlier behavior, even fills in the words for him: _I think the reason he never caught any criminals was because he was the one behind it all, Chie, not lack of protein_. 

Instead, Yosuke pauses. Yu sees his friend’s hand tense on the knife handle as the brunette seems to reconsider whatever he had been about to say.

Finally, he drops the knife entirely, sliding the cabbage-littered cutting board in Adachi’s direction. “I…think these are chopped finely enough. Is this good, Adachi-san?” 

The other man nods. “Thank you, Hanamura,” he responds, and Yu breathes out with an audible _whoosh_ as the tense moment passes. Yosuke says nothing else and, though his partner does make sure to put the knife back into a bag before moving away from the criminal, Yu cannot help but feel that a small, positive step has been taken. 

He watches Adachi’s pale, capable hands as he adds sesame dressing, then covers the leaves in a pale sheen of vinegar. The salt and pepper come last, a few deft shakes over the glistening pile. Yu feels his face flush a distinctly un-leader-like red. If he’s this level of fascinated just watching his lover prepare _cabbage_ , he thinks he might understand why Nanako, his friends, and even Dojima on the rare occasions he was home had seemed to enjoy watching him cook so much. Adachi looks poised, confident, sure of himself and completely in control of his environment – a very good look. Yu images the two of them cooking a full meal together some time, after this is over, but quickly as to derail that train of thought as his brain insists on subtracting all clothing except their aprons. 

“Done,” Adachi announces with a last flick of the salt shaker, shaking Yu from his increasingly non-innocent thoughts. He looks down to see that his hands had kept working while his mind wandered, and he had peeled the plastic wrapping from enough beef jerky for each member of their odd crew to have two sticks each. 

“I’ll serve!” Rise announces, practically bouncing over to take the pan from the dark-haired man’s outstretched hands. “And I’ll help!” As the idol separates the cabbage-based dish onto five disposable plates, Chie reaches for the beef jerky Yu holds. 

“No, Chie-senpai.” Rise makes a _tsk_ -ing noise with her tongue. “If you ‘help,’ it’ll all be gone before any of us get so much as a taste. If you really want to contribute, get all of us something to drink.” 

Yu chuckles at the downtrodden look on Chie’s face as the fighter pulls out several water bottles from yet another bag. He’s about to say something to cheer her up when, to his surprise, his lover beats him to it. 

“There’s plenty of food – especially if your Detective Prince is still as perpetually over-prepared as I remember her being. Ignore her, Satonaka – eat as much as you like.” 

Chie does so, barely waiting for the plate to be out of Rise’s hands before shoveling a wad of cabbage leaves into her mouth. Her eyes widen as she chews furiously. “Thish ith really good!” she exclaims, mouth still full, tiny shreds of green spraying the reddish grass at her feet. 

Rise takes a tentative bite of her own pile of leaves. “It’s really not bad!” she agrees, the smile on her face reassuring Yu that her thoughts are genuine and she isn’t just lying to keep the peace. “It’s better than half the stuff they feed you on tours. Dinners with important people at fancy restaurants where you can’t pronounce the name of anything on the menu – give me good honest cabbage any day.” 

The idol gasps in mock-horror as she seems to realize what she has said. “Don’t worry, Senpai!” she declares dramatically, pointing at Yu with the hand not holding her plate. “Your cooking is still the best, I promise!” 

The leader grins, but doesn’t respond verbally – he’s too busy enjoying his own first mouthful of seasoned cabbage. It _is_ good, the simple but disparate spices working together to replace the vegetable’s usually bland, mild flavor almost entirely. Unlike Chie, he waits until he has swallowed the food before he speaks. “Could I get the recipe?” 

This earns him a wry smile from Adachi. “Actually, they tried to release an ‘Inaba Cookbook’ a few months before you got here. Some organization of mostly old people who wanted to ‘preserve local recipes’ or something. When they asked at the police station, I submitted this, but they said that cabbage wasn’t enough of an ‘Inaba specialty’ to qualify. Actually, the force as a whole was kind of a bust for them – I don’t think a single cop in that town knew how to make more than coffee and instant noodles. Your uncle included, kid.” 

His anecdote seems on the verge of leading to another burst of group laughter, if Rise’s stifled giggles are any indication, when Yosuke’s sharp words cut off any possibility of further shared mirth. “Oh, yeah, I remember that cookbook. The one they tried to make as a protest against Junes ‘destroying local businesses with its mass-produced chemical-filled slop’”. 

Yu can’t help himself. He glares openly at his partner, wishing Yosuke could be just a little less…. _Yosuke_ sometimes. They’d been making progress, all having a conversation together like one of them _wasn’t_ a murderer who had been defeated and put in jail by the other four, and his hotheaded partner has to go and ruin it. 

Yosuke notices his partner’s glare and has the decency to look contrite. “Sorry. It is pretty good” he mumbles, transferring more cabbage to his mouth to avoid the necessity of speaking further. 

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Yu doesn’t miss the disbelieving look that passes between Chie and Rise at Adachi’s words. Openly and honestly apologizing for something he’d done was not the kind of thing the Adachi _they_ remembered would ever have done. Yu’s heart pounds as he remembers his lover’s words in the Velvet Room and realizes that _he_ is the inspiration for these changes. 

Chie moves over to the pan for seconds, having cleaned her plate in the time it took the others to get even halfway through the meal. To Yu’s surprise, she affectionately punches Adachi in the shoulder as she passes him. (Though, Chie being Chie, even an ‘affectionate’ punch has the criminal rubbing his shoulder and gritting his teeth in pain.) 

“Guess you are good for something after all, Adachi-san,” the fighter admits. “Although - _phew_! – Have you two _bathed_ since you got in here? You smell awful!” 

Red rises to two pairs of cheeks at the mention of bathing, and Yu does everything in his power to dismiss the memory of brushing shorn hairs tenderly from the other man’s pale neck. “Uh….n-not in a while,” he stammers. At Rise’s suspicious look, he continues. “Uh…I mean, we cleaned some blood off our clothes after a battle, but we haven’t actually, uh, bathed.” 

“We passed a lake not far back,” the idol contributes. “Since we should still probably rest a while before we move on, why don’t we all wash off? I’m sorry, Senpai, but would you mind bathing at the same time as Adachi-san……or at least standing guard or something. Yummy cabbage or no, we can’t take the risk that he might run off if we leave him unattended.” 

Yu tries to school his face into an expression of appropriate amounts resignation and disgust, but has a sneaking suspicion that the result does little to convince Rise. “Sure, I guess,” he responds, reaching for the handcuff still dangling from the criminal’s right wrist. 

He is stopped by Yosuke’s hand on top of his. “Wait, partner,” the brunette interjects. “Let me go. I know you said earlier it’s your responsibility to keep an eye on him, but – we’re a team. And I know my attitude hasn’t exactly been making things easier for you. So let me make it up to you. I’ll go, and you can help the girls clean up and take your own bath later.” 

Yu almost agrees, willing to sacrifice his chance at alone time with his lover in favor of this small hint of a new attitude in Yosuke. Then, he meets his lover’s gaze and sees the other man’s eyes widen in panic. Adachi tilts his long, pale neck sideways, wordlessly drawing Yu’s focus to the stark bluish-purple bruise left by his own teeth the night before. Belatedly, he remembers how he had practically devoured Adachi’s body like it was the world’s most delicious meal. Undoubtedly, the former detective is covered in similar hickeys and bite marks. Letting him go with Yosuke would reveal their secret to everyone, and Yu doubts his already mistrustful partner will take the knowledge well. 

He can think of only one way to get them out of this situation. He doesn’t like it – he wants to mend fences with Yosuke, not burn bridges – but no other option presents itself. 

“No, Yosuke.” He forces himself to speak in a firm, angry tone, forces himself to use the other man’s name rather than the more familiar ‘partner’. “While I appreciate you finally seeming to want to help us rather than fight with us, just earlier today you were screaming at Adachi-san and accusing him of all sorts of terrible things. I’m sorry, but I can’t trust you with him right now any more than we can trust him unguarded. I’m still not convinced that you won’t just take what you believe to be ‘justice’ into your own hands.” 

The look of hurt that crosses his partner’s face nearly breaks Yu’s heart. For one long, terrible moment, he is certain that Yosuke is going to raise his hand and slap him across the face. Instead, the brunette turns away abruptly, shoving his balled-up fists into his pockets. “I see how it is, partner,” the other man says, and Yu knows that no amount of apologies will draw another word from Yosuke’s lips for the next while. 

Wordlessly, he grabs the dangling end of the handcuff attached to Adachi’s wrist. “Come on,” he snaps, more harshly than he intended, practically dragging his lover away. He doesn’t dare look at Chie or Rise’s expressions, afraid that he will see anger and hurt, support for Yosuke and condemnation of him. 

He had thought they had begun to make progress – the jokes and teasing, the pleasant conversation over dinner. Had he erased all that with one stupid, poorly thought out plan to hide his and his lover’s secret? Yu hopes against hope that this isn’t the case – that Yosuke will come around, that Chie and Rise won’t think less of him for his harsh words. Mentally, he adds another item to his list of hopes: that the others will arrive soon. Naoto and Yukiko’s levelheadedness will be a nice – and necessary – counterpoint to the current, short-tempered team.   
“It’ll be okay, Yu.” Adachi still does not reach out to touch him, his movements limited both by the handcuff in Yu’s grasp and his teammates’ field of vision. “He knows he acted stupidly earlier, and he’s just lashing out at you to avoid admitting it.” The criminal smiles at Yu. It’s a struggle, but the silver-haired man manages to return it. 

“Thank you, Tohru,” he responds sincerely. “I hope you’re right. I really hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the game pretty much makes it canon that Adachi only eats cabbage because it's cheap, but I always was rather fond of the idea that he actually just really liked cabbage.  
> The recipe he uses in this chapter is based on the one that comes with the limited edition cabbage necklace merchandise (which is pretty much hilariously nonspecific, containing instructions such as "put as much seasoning as you want on it").


	17. Heated Coupling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize once again for the extreme delay in finishing this. I do actually have somewhat of a buffer of completed chapters now, so expect much more frequent updates. 
> 
> This chapter contains explicit consensual sexual content. Please feel free to skip this chapter if this content does not interest you. More plot-focused content resumes next chapter.

Yu sinks into the lukewarm water, wishing it could wash away his worries along with the sweat and dirt coating his body. Beside him, Adachi massages feeling back into his right hand, finally freed – at least temporarily – from the cuff’s constraints. 

The leader closes his eyes, letting himself float for a moment before turning to the task of washing. Unlike their last bath, this time Yu had made sure to find the bar of soap buried at the bottom of one of their bags. Having something more than just sand to clean himself off with feels heavenly, and he is able to lose himself for a few precious moments in the simple sensation of _not_ being coated in dirt and sweat. 

He moves to hand the soap to Adachi, reveling in the ability to openly appreciate the sharp lines of his lover’s body, the trail of bite marks running from chin to navel. Yu hasn’t checked his own body, but a few spots of lingering soreness indicate that he is similarly decorated. The roving of Adachi’s own eyes only further confirms the leader’s hypothesis. 

The silence that falls between them is comfortable, and Yu is temporarily content to watch Adachi rub foaming soap between his palms before dragging his fingers through his inexpertly trimmed hair. Still, the need to say something, to apologize for Yosuke’s continued frustrating behavior, tugs at the back of Yu’s mind. 

Finally, he settled on simple and direct. “Look, Tohru, about Yosuke –“ 

Adachi shakes his head vehemently, sending soapy droplets spattering across the leader’s face. “Yu, stop it. You don’t have to try to explain Hanamura’s behavior to me. Frankly, he’s been better-mannered than I expected.” 

Yu tries again, still unsatisfied. “But I feel-“ 

Adachi holds up a hand, lacing his soap-coated fingers with Yu’s. He places the pointer fingers of their intertwined hands against Yu’s lips in a classic ‘shushing’ gesture. “Yu, I get it. You’ve always been their leader, so you feel like you’re responsible for what they say and how they act. I – I was like that, too. Always trying to justify it when Anne was cold, when Makoto swore, when Ryuuji lashed out or Yusuke holed up in his room for days on end with his paintings. Eventually I learned that I couldn’t make them all happy all the time – not that I stopped trying, any more than you will. But even more than that, I learned that I couldn’t shoulder all of their bad moods and bad moments. I was their leader, but it didn’t mean that every time they made a mistake or hurt someone was my fault. I hadn’t failed at leading them just because they got hurt. So please, Yu. Don’t beat up _yourself_ for the way Hanamura’s acting. If he wants to apologize to me someday, he will – and if he doesn’t, he won’t. That doesn’t mean _you_ have to apologize _for_ him. That’s not your responsibility.” 

Yu nods. At the beginning of their journey together, Adachi’s insightfulness had annoyed him. His jealous, inflexible brain had read it as condescending superiority. Now, he recognizes it for what it is – the wisdom of experience – and welcomes it. He takes several deep breaths, trying to force Yosuke’s hurt glare and grumbled parting words from his mind. 

An idea alights in his brain, like a candle flickering to life from a single spark. Maybe it’s not his place to apologize for Yosuke’s actions, but maybe…

“Well, let me make it up to you, then,” he whispers, paddling across the few inches of water separating himself from Adachi. The former detective has returned to the task of rinsing his hair, and therefore doesn’t notice Yu’s approach until the younger man enfolds him in his arms. Yu pries the soap from Adachi’s fingers, placing it on a convenient rock.

“Put that down,” he growls, voice thick with lust. “You’re just going to have to wash all over again once I’m done with you.” 

Adachi shifts in Yu’s arms so that he is now facing his lover, leaning up to nuzzle against his cheek and chin. “There’s nothing to make up for, Yu. If you’re doing this just because you feel bad about Hanamura, _don’t_. But, if you’re doing it because _you_ want to…” 

Yu leans in, claiming his lover’s lips in an aggressive kiss, tongue plundering Adachi’s mouth, teeth scraping his bottom lip. He pulls away, gaze eagerly seeking out the noticeable flush that has risen to the dark-haired man’s cheeks, a delicious contrast to his usual pallor. “Having to spend all day handcuffed to you and barely able to touch you? Your cooking reminding me how good you are with your hands? That dance? You’d better _believe_ I want this.” 

Adachi smirks in response. “Well, then, in that case, by all means, go on.” 

It’s only their second intimate encounter, Yu muses, but already they’re coming to know each other’s bodies. This time, he can seek out the spots on Adachi’s neck and collarbone that he knows will draw moans and gasps from those beautifully bitten lips. He revisits some of the marks he left the previous night, leaving fresh blooms of red over the faded bluish-purple. He regrets that he has to avoid anything that will show above the collar of Adachi’s shirt, but he makes up for it by paying extra attention to the planes of Adachi’s chest and stomach. 

The former detective is far from shy with his own response, meeting Yu’s unusual aggressiveness with whines and moans that only drive the leader to explore further, bite harder, touch more. One hand curls in Yu’s hair, tugging, pulling his lover closer, closer, _closer_ , until no boundary remains between them, until it feels as though their bodies might mold and fuse. The other hand snakes beneath the surface to grab a handful of Yu’s ass, enjoying the new sensation that the smooth slickness of the lake water adds to the touch. 

There’s no time for the previous night’s languid exploration – even now, in the back of his mind, Yu knows that Yosuke’s suspicions or Chie’s impulsivity might spell their doom. But he needs this, needs this stolen moment with his Tohru, needs to show him that his teammates’ attitudes haven’t changed the way he feels. He slides a hand down Adachi’s chest and stomach to curl it around his cock, already fully hard and dripping with both water and arousal. 

It seems that Adachi is on the same page, as the criminal turns his attention from tonguing one of Yu’s nipples to gasp out: “What’s your plan here, O Great Leader? We haven’t got a lot of time before the others start to worry rogue Personas got us. Going to tease me, leave me desperate and then put me back into that cuff?” 

Yu smirks as he begins to stroke, not a slow pace by any means but not quite enough to finish his lover off. “Is that what you want?” 

The criminal’s blush deepens. “N-no,” he actually _stammers,_ and Yu feels as triumphant as though he had just beaten Izanami all over again. 

The leader leans forward, nips at Adachi’s earlobe as he whispers. “You’re not fooling me. You sounded _far_ too excited about that possibility. I’ll have to remember that for later. But right now, if you’ll have me, I….I’d like to fuck you.” 

The sound that bubbles up from Adachi’s throat at the whispered words is half gasp, half chuckle, a strange coupling of arousal and amusement. “You’re the only person I know who can somehow be so polite and so vulgar at the same time. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but it’s just so….so _you_.” 

Yu gives the other man’s cock a teasing squeeze, his free hand pinching at one nipple as his tongue and teeth explore the other. “Well, Tohru, is that a yes?” 

Adachi moans so loudly that Yu is briefly afraid the others might hear. “That was a fuck, yes, Yu, take me, _please_ ” he pants. 

The leader briefly withdraws, keeping his hands on Adachi’s body but ceasing his movements. “Are you sure?” he asks, concerned, wanting to hear his lover’s affirmation when he’s _not_ being overwhelmed by pleasurable touches. “You told me last night that you’d never…never had…never been the…never done this,” he finally settles on, too embarrassed to ask more directly. 

Gray eyes lock on his, Adachi’s gaze just as lust-filled and wanting as Yu’s own. “Yes, I’m sure.” The killer’s breathing is ragged, but his tone is steady and his words deliberate. “What was it you said last night? Oh, yes….’I want you inside me.’” 

Yu’s own face reddens at that, and he marvels at Adachi’s ability to throw him so completely off balance even when he is playing the nominally submissive role in the encounter. When he responds, he finds that he is now the one stammering and tripping over his words. 

“Well I…I’ll go get the lube then, I…I um, put it in my pocket this morning, luckily.” Gray eyes scan the small lake, its sandy shores, the few scattered rocks. “Where…should we…?” 

As Yu splashes over to the shore to retrieve the lube from his abandoned pants, Adachi seems to be genuinely struggling to answer the question through the fog of lust in his brain. “You could take me standing up, in the water,” he murmurs, “but I’m afraid my legs might give out. What about….there?” He points at the largest of the rocks dotting the center of the lake, an ancient, moss-smoothed thing with no jagged edges that might tear at their naked flesh. 

Having recovered some of his composure during Yu’s brief absence, the criminal’s next words are smooth, teasing once again. “Yes, much nicer than standing. I quite like the idea of you looming over me while you fuck me. Pinning my hands down? Perhaps taking me from behind?” 

Yu laughs as he re-enters the water, small luridly pink bottle now clutched in his hand. “The pinning your hands I can do, but the other one’s a no, at least this time.” He grasps Adachi’s shoulders, pulling him in for a brief, hungry kiss. A trail of saliva connects their lips when they separate, a testament to Yu’s newly discovered ferocity. “I’ve become far too fond of looking at your face.” 

The leader glances around the lake, keeping an arm possessively around Adachi’s shoulders as he pretends to have forgotten his lover’s earlier words. “Now, where was it that you wanted me to fuck you, exactly?” 

The killer returns his former enemy’s smirk. “Against that rock. But I think maybe you should show off this new dominant side of yours some more first. Impress me.” 

Yu’s eyes narrow, a predator stalking his prey. He tightens the arm around Adachi’s shoulders, reaching around and securing his other arm around his lover’s thighs, giving his ass a firm slap as his hand travels towards its destination. Taking advantage of Adachi’s current distraction, he tightens his grip and sweeps the other man’s legs out from under him, shifting him into a bridal carry. 

There is little difference in size between the two men, but a combination of Yu’s swordplay-trained muscles and Adachi’s less than filling prison diet allow the leader to bear his lover’s weight just long enough to reach his goal. Yu drags Adachi through the water, practically flinging him back-first against the rock he had indicated. Adachi finds himself too desire-addled to resist – not that he wants to. 

“Impressed?” Yu growls, grinning down at his pinned lover. Too overcome for words, Adachi merely nods. Yu reflects briefly on the irony of the moment – for someone who never truly had a Shadow, his aggressive, dominant behavior is surprisingly Shadow-like in nature. 

“Good,” the leader continues in the same throaty, commanding tones. He grips Adachi’s hips, forcing the other man to shift his weight upward so that his feet leave the lake’s bottom and he is braced entirely against the smooth, ancient boulder. “Then let’s see you lift those hips and spread those legs for me, Tohru.” 

Adachi _mewls_ as he immediately complies. A thrill runs through Yu as he watches the usually so composed, collected and aggressive man submit himself fully to his ministrations. This obedient, submissive side of his Tohru belongs only to him – and he loves every moment of it. 

The leader hesitates briefly, realizing he is slightly unsure regarding the next step in the process. He recalls Adachi preparing him the night before, but had been too lost in the tingling pleasure devouring his body to make note of the specific actions. 

Luckily, his lover, observant despite his arousal, notices Yu’s hesitation and correctly guesses its source. “Cover your fingers in the lube and use those. Start slowly, one at a time. When it comes to….this part, it’s as much my first time as last night was yours.” 

Nerves threaten to overwhelm Yu, negative thoughts circling his head as though determined to ruin the moment. What if he hurt Adachi? What if Adachi merely decided that he didn’t like the feeling? What if he hated it so much that he never wanted to have sex again? 

His lover watches him quietly, as though aware of the doubts spinning through Yu’s brain. Perhaps unable to think of the right words to calm him in this heated moment, perhaps knowing Yu needs to work through his doubts for himself, Adachi does not respond verbally. Instead, he gives his lover a sweet, surprisingly gentle smile and reaches out, briefly stroking Yu’s cheek. 

Yu recalls cutting Adachi’s hair in the stream, and the truth he had first come to understand then: Adachi trusts him. He’d trusted Yu to perform a task that involved holding a knife against his neck, and now he was trusting him to enter and claim his body. The knowledge of that trust sets a warm feeling that he didn’t dare name stirring in Yu’s gut; it blows the doubts from his mind like leaves on the wind. 

“Are you ready?” Yu whispers, coating his fingers with the contents of the pink bottle. 

“Yes,” Adachi affirms. He raises his arms above his head, crossing them at the wrists as though they are bound by an invisible version of the handcuffs lying abandoned on the shore. Yu understands his meaning immediately. He places his left hand above the intersection of those pale wrists, applying pressure – first slight, then gradually more, drawing a lengthy moan from Adachi’s lips. 

With the other hand, he seeks Adachi’s entrance and begins to slowly press a finger inside. 

He keeps his movements steady and his pace borderline glacial. It seems to take an eternity for the probing finger to reach the first knuckle, even longer for the second. Adachi closes his eyes and bites his lip, silent at first, then emitting a whimper which causes Yu to pause. 

“Talk to me, Tohru,” he soothes. “Does it hurt?” 

“No…feels strange. Good strange,” his lover reassures him. “Don’t stop.” 

Yu obliges, and soon his finger is fully seated inside Adachi. _Inside Adachi_. The sheer intimacy of the words sends a shudder through the leader. 

The criminal’s hips wriggle as he accustoms himself to the strange sensation. “Go ahead,” he encourages Yu. “You can move a little.” 

The leader starts out with straight, fairly basic motions that draw little reaction from the man beneath him. He recalls the previous night, how Adachi had angled his finger just so and brushed some spot, some bundles of nerves that had made Yu see stars. He adjusts his motions somewhat, seeking the same reaction…and succeeds. Adachi’s eyes snap shut, his pinned hands clench so tightly he leaves nail-marks in his own flesh, he calls _”Yu…”_ ” in a tone impossibly ragged and full of want. Yu smiles, unable to help feeling slightly proud of himself. 

“Another…please….” Adachi gasps out. 

Yu frowns, not immediately obliging his lover’s request. “Are you sure? If I hurt you, I’d never be able to…” 

“I used three on you last night,” the criminal snaps. “It’s only fair.” 

Yu shakes his head, resolutely. “What’s fair is that you be honest with me about what you can handle – and about what you _want_.” 

Adachi’s response is a huffed half-laugh that Yu is all too familiar with. He’s become familiar enough with his lover to guess that what will come next is some self-deprecating remark about how Adachi doesn’t deserve the way Yu treats him. 

To his surprise, the remark never comes. He pauses, seeming to genuinely, honestly consider Yu’s words, then finally responds: “One more. Please.” 

Now Yu nods, and a look of intense concentration settles over his face as he turns to the task of adding a second finger. The positioning of his hand is slightly uncomfortable, the unused fingers forced to curl more closely in towards his palm than they are wont, but the tight, slick sensation of his lover clenched around the other two is more than worth it. 

It takes a few practice thrusts to become accustomed to moving the two fingers together, then a few more to find Adachi’s sweet spot again. But Yu finds himself to be a quick learner, and soon he once again has his lover moaning and panting, the hands the leader holds immobile twitching and clenching at nothing. Yu’s own memories tell him that Adachi is not far from tumbling over the edge and, as pleasurable his current actions are, he wants his lover to come from something more than fingering. 

He withdraws his fingers. The whimper that escapes Adachi’s lips is an echo of the sound Yu himself made at the same moment during their previous encounter. Yu transfers the remaining lube from his hand to his cock, nervousness resurfacing as he realizes what he is about to do. 

But Adachi’s moans, Adachi’s look of pure lust, Adachi’s whisper of “Take me, Yu” before Yu can even ask if the other man is ready drive him forward, past nerves and into white-hot arousal. He enters his lover as slowly and carefully as he had when using only a finger, though even Yu’s legendary control threatens to slip at the feeling of pure, unequaled _pleasure_. 

Now Yu is the one moaning, barely halfway in and already feeling like he might explode from the sheer intensity of it. He remembers that Adachi had stilled when fully inside him, given him a chance to adjust to the sensation. The leader is surprised to find how nearly impossible it is to do the same, how every nerve and muscle he possesses cries out to move, to thrust and rock and claim the body beneath him as his own. 

But he waits, teeth clamped against his lower lip in a futile attempt to stifle the urges. It seems to take an eternity until Adachi whines “Move”. No sooner has the word left his lips then Yu thrusts forward, not as gently as intended, both the hand on Adachi’s hip and the one over his wrists clutching hard enough to leave marks. 

It’s so much _more_ than Yu ever imagined it could be, hot and tight and he howls to the sky, the danger of being heard forgotten in the ecstasy of fucking Adachi. Adachi bucks and moans and writhes beneath him, fragments of affirmations dropping from his lips as surrenders every part of himself to Yu’s touch.

Yu realizes that the precipice is fast approaching, and he releases Adachi’s wrists to grasp his cock. The pleasure races through his body like long trails of lightning, and, though he tenses every muscle he can possibly think of to tense, the leader knows that he cannot hold off the inevitable for long. 

“Tohru…” he cries, and he knows there’s more he needs to say - _I’m close, can I, please,_ \- but the words escape his pleasure-drunk brain. 

Luckily, Adachi seems to have enough remaining composure to understand. “Go on, Yu,” he urges gently, one of his now-freed hands grasping Yu’s shoulder for balance, the other braced against the rock he’s currently being roughly fucked against. He clarifies: “Inside”. 

Yu’s entire body shivers at that single word, so full of promise and want. The hand holding Adachi’s cock spasms, and he feels wetness coat it, hears a wordless scream as his lover finds release. It’s too much – Yu can do nothing but give in to his own bliss. White stars explode behind his eyelids as he comes, filling and marking his Tohru with the sign of his own ecstasy. 

The leader can barely move, his limbs weak, his energy sapped, but he forces himself to continue functioning at least for a little while longer. He wants nothing more than to wrap Adachi in his arms and bask in the afterglow, but he knows they’re cutting it close and need to get back to the others as soon as possible before suspicions increase even further. 

He lets Adachi clean himself off, knowing any attempts to ‘help’ on his part will just result in a repeat performance. No words are exchanged between them until both men are dressed, still damp-haired but noticeably better-smelling. 

Adachi walks over to Yu, holding out the handcuffs and the mostly-empty lube bottle. “That was…it was really good, Yu,” the former detective says in that rare shy tone that makes Yu fall harder for him each time he hears it. “It felt amazing. I’m a little mad at myself for waiting so many years to try that – though I doubt it would have been that wonderful with anyone else.” 

The silver-haired man guiltily eyes the marks lining Adachi’s chest where he has yet to finish buttoning his shirt. The pale flesh is a canvas of reds, blues and purples, the work of Yu’s teeth and nails intermingled indiscriminately. “So,” he remarks. “I’m the rough one and you’re the gentle one. Never would have guessed that.” 

Adachi laughs, that free, open, genuine laugh marked for Yu’s ears only. “More like I’m the intense one who has to control himself and you’re the perfect leader who needs to let loose every once in a while.” He winks, shooting Yu a gaze full of sultry promise. “Whenever you have tension or energy you need to let out like that, I’d be more than happy to oblige.” 

Yu practically beams as he reattaches the handcuff to Adachi’s wrist and his own. “I’ve learned so much about myself through this time with you, Tohru,” he admits shyly. “You’ve taught me so much…but I have to say, this was my favorite lesson.”   
He flexes his wrist to test the cuff’s fastenings – which, conveniently, also pulls Adachi into his arms. He bestows a sweet, thorough kiss on his lover. Both men’s reluctance to return to the others company is palpable – neither knows when they’ll be able to touch like this again. 

Eventually, they break apart. The two men walk back towards the makeshift campsite in companionable silence, each lost in the memories of the intimate moment they had just shared. A loud, energetic cry of “Senpai!” jolts them both from the happy memories. Yu stops in his tracks, his heart sinking – his team members must have realized they were gone far too long after all. 

He fears the worst, but to his surprise it is only Rise who steps into his field of vision, the expression on her face curious but not angry or accusatory. 

“Oh, hi Rise.” His voice sounds high-pitched and frazzled to his own ears. “What’s up?” 

“I wanted to talk to you two, alone,” the idol responds. “Senpai, what’s going on with you and Adachi-san?” 

Yu’s heart rises into his throat. His worst nightmare is coming true. Rise knows. Of course. How could she not know? Already a perceptive person in the everyday world, her Persona powers coupled with her natural instincts must have alerted her to their secret since the moment the two groups had met up. 

“Rise…” Any further words turn to ashes in his mouth. There’s nothing he can say that will fix this. She won’t believe any lies he or Adachi try to tell. She’ll tell Yosuke, and any chance Yu had of repairing his friendship with his partner – or keeping his bonds with _any_ of the Investigation Team members – would be gone. 

She holds up a hand. “Your silence is all the answer I need. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Yosuke. I may not understand it, but I trust you, Senpai.” 

The wave of relief that crashes over Yu is so great that he nearly bursts into tears right there. He tries again. “Rise...” There is so much he should say to her, but no words come. 

To his surprise, Adachi finishes the thought. “Thank you, Kujikawa,” the criminal says simply. “As a former detective, though, I’m curious. May I ask how you knew?” 

The idol turns, addressing Adachi rather than her speechless leader. “It was easy,” she responds. “I’ve never seen Senpai smile this much in all the years I’ve known him.” 

Now Yu _does_ cry, tears leaking from the corners of his gray eyes to stain his newly clean shirt. “Rise…” he repeats for the third time. 

“Yes, that’s my name, thank you for reminding us,” she teases him, before returning her attention to his lover. “Oh, I’m guessing this goes without saying, but – if you hurt Senpai, you’ll be looking at way worse than a lifetime in jail.” 

Adachi laughs; while it’s not quite the open, heedless laugh he reserves for Yu, it’s still something more genuine than his habitual sarcastic chuckle. He holds up his non-cuffed hand in a gesture of surrender. “Kujikawa, I can say without exaggeration that you and your friends are more terrifying than anything I encountered in jail OR this crazy world. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” 

She nods. “Good. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the actual reason I came to find you guys. Adachi-san, ever since I entered the TV world, I’ve been sensing your presence magnified times about a million. It’s like when we were tracking you in Magatsu Inaba, but…more, somehow. It’s why I haven’t been able to locate Teddie. At first I thought it was because you were the one responsible for kidnapping him, but I know that isn’t true. So – I need you to be honest with me. Does whatever’s got Teddie have something to do with you?” 

The criminal nods. Yu reaches across and squeezes Adachi’s uncuffed hand with his own, no longer caring if Rise sees. “I’ll spare you my whole tragic backstory,” Adachi answers, “but, long story short, yeah, we’re pretty sure it’s a monster that absolutely kicked my ass when I was younger.” 

To both men’s surprise, the idol smiles. “Good. This should work then. Learning more about the people Namatame kidnapped was always what let me find them. Having you actually here should make the connection even stronger. If I track this thing using you as a focus, maybe I can pinpoint its location.” 

Adachi nods. “Whatever you need me to do.” 

Rise tosses her tarot card, catching it neatly between two fingers and snapping it in half. Kanzeon’s familiar form appears, looming over the petite idol. 

“Sorry, Senpai, I’m going to need Adachi-san’s hand,” Rise announces. Yu reluctantly drops the contact with his lover to allow him to link with the idol. “Now, tell me everything you can remember about this creature.” 

Adachi shudders as he recounts the obviously painful memories, but his tone remains steady and resolute. “It’s a giant crow, with a wingspan practically large enough to black out the sun. It had these terrible claws as long as knives and these blank, empty red eyes. We never found out what exactly it was-“ 

Rise holds up her free hand, halting the torrent of words. “I think I’ve got something.” Her face – or at least the part of it visible beneath Kanzeon’s visor – pales. “Oh no,” she breathes. 

“What is it, Rise?” Yu’s heart sinks. 

“Our dancing plan really failed,” she responds, her voice choked with fear. “It’s at the entrance. It’s not moving – just sitting there. Waiting. Yosuke-senpai and Chie-senpai and I must have surprised it when we came through, because we never encountered it, but it’s suspicious now. It knows that there will be others coming through, or at least it guesses. We have to-“ Her voice cuts off. Though Yu can see very little of her face, he is fairly certain the expression it sports is one of extreme terror. 

Adachi squeezes her hand, reassuring. “It’s okay, Kujikawa. You did great. You know where it is now, and we can attack it from behind when it’s not expecting us.” 

She shakes her head. “No…it’s too late.” She clings to the hand of the criminal she once despised as though it is her only lifeline. “I just received a signal from Kirijo-san’s Persona. They’re here – and they’re about to walk right into that creature’s trap.”


	18. Interlude: Amagi Inn-Believable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we are, almost a year later, and another chapter at last. 
> 
> There are....a lot of reasons why it took me so long to write this. I won't get into them here. I can't promise a regular update schedule from now on, but I will say that I am determined to finish this, no matter how long it takes me. 
> 
> Although P5 has been out for many months now, I have refrained from playing it or spoiling myself in any way. This story will continue to adhere to the original idea I created for it when all that existed for P5 was a few trailers. I don't plan on changing anything to fit more closely to the story's actual canon. The entity mentioned in this chapter as the one behind things is a character I came up with years ago when I first had the idea for NB, and draws no inspiration from whatever might be waiting at the end of P5's actual plot.

“That’s it,” Kanji snaps for the twelfth time since Yosuke, Chie and Rise’s impulsive departure. “I’m goin’ in after them!” 

The large blonde man paces back and forth across the room, occasionally pausing to clench his fists as though he plans to punch straight through the blank, staring screen of the former Junes TV. All of the mellowness and self-control he’d gained through his years with Naoto have fled into the TV along with the other Team members, and it is the short-tempered, hot-headed Kanji Tatsumi currently stomping his way across the Amagi Inn’s tatami floors. 

“Kanji,” Naoto sighs tiredly. She’s talked him down from this terrible idea eleven times in the past day, and even her legendary patience is running thin. “I’m sure they’re safe. I’m sure Kirijo-san and her group will be here soon. Just wait a little while longer.” It’s the same reassurances she’s been repeating to him approximately every half hour. The words are beginning to sound flat and empty even to her own ears. 

Unfortunately, the third member of the Investigation Team still on the front side of the TV has nothing to contribute to the attempts to calm Kanji. Yukiko had spent most of the day running back and forth, keeping the detective and her assistant supplied with tea, snacks and meals while simultaneously tending to the myriad of small tasks required of her as the Inn’s proprietress and attempting to pretend that she wasn’t terrified about Chie’s safety.

When the Inn had finally quieted down, the hot springs closed for the night and even the rowdiest of guests shuffled off to bed, Naoto had taken one look at the haggard, drawn lines of Yukiko’s face and attempted to send her directly to her own rest. The innkeeper had folded her arms across her chest, drawn herself up to her full height and, every inch the noble lady ruling her domain, insisted she would stay up and wait for the Shadow Operatives with them. She’d sat down, stayed awake for about five minutes, and then promptly fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against the smooth wood of the table. The occasional soft, light snore was her only contribution to the other Team members’ endlessly cycling argument. 

“Naoto, you’ve gotta agree it’s been too long,” the blonde pleads. “It was around noon when they left, and now it’s nearly morning!” 

The Detective Prince rubs her temples, attempting to ward off the threatening headache. “It’s two thirty AM, Kanji, not ‘nearly morning’. I’m sure Kirijo-san and Sanada-san were both able to complete the tasks I requested of them, and will likely be arriving on the first train to Inaba tomorrow….er, later today.” 

Kanji ticks off train times on his large, calloused fingers, momentarily engrossed in trying to remember Inaba’s erratic, infrequent schedule. His face darkens like a brewing thunderstorm. “Eight thirty. The first train arrives at eight thirty, plus at least another thirty minutes to get to the Inn from the train station. You sayin’ we should wait another _seven hours_ before going in to find Senpai?”

Naoto frowns, hating the delay as much as her beloved but knowing that she needs to remain the rational one when he cannot. “Yes, Kanji, that’s exactly what I-“ 

“Good thing Mitsuru never was one for public transportation then, huh?” A voice rivaling Kanji’s in deepness and roughness calls out from the doorway. 

“Akihiko, hush,” another voice, this one far more composed, reprimands. “As Detective Shirogane pointed out, it is two thirty in the morning, and this is an inn. People are sleeping.” 

Naoto stands, greeting the new arrivals with a tired but welcoming smile. “Sanada-san. Kirijo-san. It’s extremely good to see you. Thank you so much for arriving so quickly.” 

“You’re here! Oh, you’re here!” All traces of Kanji’s former dangerous mood are gone; his face sports a grin so wide it threatens to crack his jaw. He covers the distance between table and door in two strides, then drops to his knees as though greeting royalty. It quickly becomes apparent that his exuberant words were meant neither for the red-haired woman nor the white-haired man at her side. Instead, Kanji spreads his massive arms wide, pulling a large red-eyed dog into a tight embrace, burying his face in cloud-soft white fur. 

The dog thumps his tail on the floor three times, looking up at his human companions as though to ask ‘why don’t _you_ give me this kind of attention.’ 

Mitsuru Kirijo, leader of the Shadow Operatives, laughs, a brief, humorless sound. “I’m sorry, Detective Shirogane. I know you probably expected a larger team, and I doubt Koromaru would have been your first choice to bring along as backup-“ 

The detective holds up a hand, forestalling any further attempts at explanation. “We’re incredibly grateful to you for offering your aid at all. I know I called you here on extremely short notice – besides, I have no concerns regarding Koromaru. I watched him more than prove himself as a capable member of your team during the Grand Prix, and, well," she manages to smile a little wider despite the tense situation “it might help keep Kanji a little calmer.” She shoots a fond gaze at her boyfriend, currently cooing various nonsense phrases into the long-suffering Koromaru’s ear. 

“Getting down to business, then,” Akihiko Sanada, the Operatives’ police liaison, attempts to turn the conversation away from his canine friend. Before he can continue, however, Yukiko lets out a startled gasp, shaken awake by the white-haired man’s lack of volume control. 

“Oh, Kirijo-san, and…everyone else,” she yawns as she staggers to her feet, still only slightly removed from the realm of sleep. “I’m being such a bad host…would you like some tea? Coffee?” 

“Sit down, Amagi,” Mitsuru places a kind but commanding hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Let’s make this briefing quick – I’m sure you all are as eager as I am to make our entrance in as little time as possible. If I understand your latest communication correctly, Detective Shirogane, the situation has become even more time-sensitive due to the…not quite thought out…actions of some of your companions?” 

Naoto nods, trying less than successfully to keep the frustration and irritation out of her voice. “Hanamura Yosuke, Kujikawa Rise and Satonaka Chie entered the TV world at approximately noon yesterday, while the three of us were out of the room. Given that Yosuke-senpai had previously expressed the opinion that Yu-senpai, despite all available evidence, had been kidnapped by Adachi-san, I’m inclined to worry about what rash decisions he might have made after crossing over to the other world.” 

Akihiko clenches his fists, unconsciously adopting a mirror of Kanji’s earlier pose of barely constrained anger. “It’s as you suspected, Detective. The security footage from the prison, as well as the stills from the footage that I sent to you, clearly shows Narukami Yu entering of his own volition, initiating the conversation with the inmate in question, and providing the tools for his escape.” 

Mitsuru picks up the thread of the narrative, the heeled boots she had forgotten to remove sinking into the soft tatami as she withdraws Yu’s cellphone from a plastic evidence bag. “Once we had restored power to this phone, we were able to determine that no communication between Narukami Yu and either Adachi Tohru or the prison that held him had occurred since he first purchased this phone, well over a year ago. The exception was a single call to the prison on the day of his disappearance. The guard who was on duty remembered the call, and said that he’d asked about when visiting hours were and then hung up. We calculated the time between the call and when Narukami signed the facility’s guest register – he got there quick. He must have gotten on the first train he could.” 

The Detective Prince catches the older woman’s point easily. “The evidence suggests that the call and the trip were made with minimal forethought – that his decision to reach out to Adachi-san for help was a last minute one, made in desperation when none of us were available or willing to listen.” 

Yukiko lets out a frustrated sigh. When she speaks, her voice is unusually sharp. “Alright, so that tells us everything we had already guessed was true. Naoto, I thought you said that you had sent Kirijo-san and Sanada-san on an errand that would help us learn _more_ about the situation before we go jumping headlong into the TV like Chie…did…” The proprietress trails off, her anger fading as she remembers the danger her closest-friend-possibly-more currently faces. 

Akihiko places a hand on Yukiko’s shoulder. She gratefully accepts, leaning against the big policeman as though he’s the only thing keeping her standing. “She did, Amagi. My task was mostly covering our own tracks – we had to get control of the situation at the prison, take over the case from the prefectural police, subpoena the security footage before anyone realized _how_ the escape was carried out. But Mitsuru here…” 

“Can speak for herself, thank you, Akihiko,” the imposing woman cuts in. “Had I not been witness to your clear head, your sanity and your ability to draw accurate conclusions from minimal evidence, Detective, I would have been as suspicious as Amagi about how…useful…the favor you asked of me was. Still, I felt that I owed you for your aid in the investigation into Ikutsuki Shuji’s research – both as the leader of the Shadow Operatives and as a friend.”

“And did you manage to secure the item I requested?” the detective asks. 

“Yes,” Mitsuru responds. “Though it was a more difficult task than I anticipated – your grandfather has quite the forceful personality. I should have been expecting that, given my past experiences with _you_. So, are you going to tell me what the ramblings of a long-dead teen detective have to do with the matter at hand?” 

“Call it a hunch,” Naoto answers grimly. 

Kanji briefly turns from his exuberant petting of Koromaru. “Come on, Naoto,” he chides lovingly. “With you, nothing’s _ever_ a hunch.” 

The Detective Prince sighs. “I’ll make this quick, then. We’re short enough on time as it is. When I was young, my grandfather inherited a series of papers belonging to one Goro Akechi, a teenaged detective similar to myself. Akechi made quite a name for himself in the city – until he was mysteriously killed while investigating a group of criminals known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. He was somewhat acquainted with my grandfather, and left him all of his notes on the Thieves shortly before his death” 

“I read about that case during training,” the white-haired boxer interjects. “A group of thieves, kids mostly, who would go around stealing stuff from people they claimed were ‘corrupt’. Always left these calling cards talking about how what they were really stealing was hearts, or some nonsense.” 

“I still fail to see-“ Yukiko begins, but Kanji stops her with a warning glare as Naoto continues. 

“Of course, I idolized Akechi. He was everything I wished to be – a dashing, clever young detective widely acknowledged to be smarter than the police. I devoured every piece of his writing. Some part of me even fantasized about solving the case he could not, and bringing the Phantom Thieves of Hearts to justice – this despite both the fact that their spree was long ended and the commonly accepted theory that they had caught the attention of a more dangerous criminal element, and been killed while on a job. However – there were several pages of documents that my grandfather would never show me. I begged and pleaded for years, but he refused. Even when I became a detective in my own right, his answer remained no. He would always say that what the papers contained was inconsequential fluff – that Akechi had gone mad as he continuously failed to catch the Thieves. He called them ‘logic-defying nonsense’ and ‘superstitious ramblings’. This has led me to hypothesize that the Phantom Thieves of Hearts were Persona users just as we are.” 

Silence reigns in the small conference room. Naoto realizes that the others have still failed to make the connection that seems perfectly clear to her logical brain. She continues her explanation, speaking rather faster than she is accustomed. “I cross-referenced the dates of the Thieves' last known heists and Akechi’s disappearance with obituaries and coroners’ reports. I discovered that a number of teenagers were found dead under similarly mysterious circumstances at around the same time as Akechi. This led me to conclude that the Thieves, like your SEES and our Investigation Team, were fighting to stop some sort of supernatural entity – but, unlike us, their efforts did not succeed.” 

Yukiko gasps. Kanji slams his fist on the table, suddenly understanding. “And you think whatever thing they fought all those years ago is – still out there?”

Naoto nods. “It’s not impossible to think that it could be another unrelated entity. What with Nyx, Erebus, Izanami, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, Mikuratani-no-Kami….we do seem to attract these types. However, I do have another reason for theorizing that whatever terrorized the Thieves is what kidnapped Teddie.” 

“Well, out with it!” Akihiko demands. 

Naoto shakes her head. “As a detective, I am reluctant to share my theories until I have slightly more proof. Perhaps the answer I seek will be in the files of Goro Akechi, which Kirijo-san seems to have finally convinced my grandfather to share with me.” 

She reaches out a hand to Mitsuru, expecting to be handed the well-worn manila envelope containing Akechi’s files. Instead, the redheaded woman shakes her head. “Your grandfather agreed to let you view the files, but he refused to let me remove them from his home. I’ve scanned them and brought them to you in digital format instead.” 

Kanji scratches his head. “I don’t see any computers.” 

“Reportin’ for duty!” an energetic voice exclaims from behind the very confused blonde. The three Investigation Team members turn towards the door, smiles spreading across their faces despite their exhaustion and the tense situation as they realize just who the new arrival is. 

The tall, elegant, blue-haired Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon had abandoned her old Yasogami High uniform in favor of a black outfit similar to (but significantly less revealing than) Mitsuru’s. Her trademark axe, on the other hand, remained as much a part of her getup as ever, dangling casually from one jointed metal hand. 

“Sorry, Yukiko,” Labrys apologizes. “I think I mighta scared some of your night staff with this thing.” She turns to Naoto. “I hope you all don’t mind me coming along…I wasn’t part of the chosen team originally, but I heard Yu and that silly bear were in danger and I had to join in.” 

“Thank you,” Naoto responds wholeheartedly. “Your help is beyond appreciated. Especially as I hear you have the scans of Goro Akechi’s files?” 

The weapon nods. Her red eyes begin to glow a vivid neon blue and, without warning, a series of zoomed-in images appear projected on the conference room’s formerly plain white wall. The first images seem benign enough – full-body sketches of the various members of the Phantom Thieves in their costumes, labeled with code names such as _Joker_ and _Queen_. Labrys blinks, switching to a second set of images, and a collective gasp rises from the assembled company. 

What appears on the makeshift screen are more drawings, elaborate inhuman creatures that can be nothing but Personas. A complex series of arrows links the Personas to their users. Naoto reads the names aloud, even her well-schooled tongue stumbling slightly over the foreign pronunciations. 

“Arsene. Captain Kidd. Zorro. Milady. Ne…necro…Necronomicon?” 

Kanji scratches his head. “Those sure are some weird names. Think they’re like....American?” 

Mitsuru shakes her head. “Our Personas take the forms of Greek deities, and yours Japanese. These Phantom Thieves seem to have been assisted not by gods, but by the heroes of classic literature.” 

Naoto raises a hand as if to touch the projected image of the man called “Joker,” the Phantom Thieves’ leader. Even Akechi’s pencil sketch seems to lend further credibility to her idea – the tumble of dark curls, that confident pose, the slashed line of his mouth, one corner pulled up in a smirk. _Could it really be…?_

Snapping out of her reverie, the detective addresses Labrys. “Is that all?” 

“One more page.” The gynoid blinks again, revealing a mostly-blank notebook page with only a single drawing: an immense, birdlike creature, colored black. Below it, written in Goro’s slanting handwriting, are two underlined words: 

CROW? RAVEN? 

“That’s it!” Akihiko practically shouts. 

“So…a big bird?” Kanji asks, confused. 

Naoto taps her chin, unconsciously mimicking the deep-in-thought mannerisms of her senior detective, Dojima. “I think it would be best if we made an attempt to identify the creature before tracking and confronting it. It seems Akechi – and thus, presumably, the other Thieves – had no idea what they were facing, which may have contributed to their presumed loss.” 

“Some kind of god, like Izanami? Are there any gods who are crows? Yatagarasu comes to mind,” Yukiko puts in. 

Mitsuru shakes her head. “If the Personas that the Velvet Room sent to aid these thieves were based on literary characters, it makes sense to theorize that this crow or raven shares the same origin.” 

“The Phantom Thieves of Hearts always liked to claim they were ‘stealing hearts’. That is, they took the sad, negative and painful emotions from peoples’ hearts, causing them to regret the bad things they had done. While the Thieves certainly did steal, they undeniably did some good as well – many notorious criminals suddenly turned themselves in and attributed it to an encounter with the Thieves. What if the emotions that the thieves were stealing were put into peoples’ hearts by this creature?” Naoto suggests. 

“Labrys,” Mitsuru commands, her friendly, conversational tone suddenly replaced by her imperious ‘Head of the Kirijo Group and the Shadow Operatives’ voice. “Can you perform a search for something in literature that resembles a large black bird and has some ability to cause people to feel negative emotions?” 

“Searching now,” the Anti-Shadow weapon affirms. 

As Labrys’s processors hum and buzz, the five humans and one dog wait in anxious silence. Kanji wraps an arm around Naoto’s waist; Akihiko’s right hand finds Mitsuru’s while his left remains a steady presence on Yukiko’s shoulder. The inn manager’s free hand busies itself with nervously stroking Koromaru’s neck. A feeling of immense foreboding falls over the small room. Despite facing down gods and monsters with regularity, every Persona user present finds themselves afraid of what the search might turn up. 

When Labrys speaks again, it is with a queer, flat voice, so different from her usual that for a moment the Operatives fear her Shadow might have re-emerged. The single word that falls from her lips does nothing to remove the creeping fear that sits in the pit of each person’s stomach like a ball of lead. 

_“Nevermore.”_


	19. Sinister Threats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated with two chapters at once today, so make sure you read Chapter 18 before this one.

The battle has already begun when Yu and his companions arrive. It doesn’t seem to have taken the crew of mixed Investigation Team members and Shadow Operatives long to realize that, although their opponents are Personas rather than Shadows, they are just as aggressive and deadly as anything faced during their previous adventures. 

From his spot on Seiryu’s back, Yu scans the ground below, shading his eyes against the rising red sun – they’d flown through the deep blue night, catching scattered bits of sleep when they could - as he attempts to identify the rogue Personas involved in the scuffle. He sees the Norse Gods, Futsunushi, Mada – nothing, he mentally sighs with relief, that he and Adachi haven’t faced during one of their previous struggles. The still-nameless thing causing the Personas to go rogue has yet to make its appearance, though the pallor of Rise’s visored face indicates that she still senses it nearby. 

He nods to Adachi, seated on a dragon Persona of his own, and both men begin their descent. Behind him, Yu can feel the shift of bodies as Yosuke and Chie prepare their own tarot cards. Rise, riding behind Adachi both because she needed room to keep her Persona summoned and because she was the only one who would, lets loose a Kanzeon-produced burst of sonic energy aimed at both distracting the attackers and notifying Naoto’s team of their arrival. 

As Seiryu dives towards the red-tinted ground, Yu observes the dance of destruction that has begun between his friends and their Persona opponents. Mitsuru’s Artemisia spins with deadly grace, severing a Pale Rider’s skull-like head cleanly from its neck. Akihiko and his Caesar throw punches in tandem, knocking everything in their path to the ground with little hope of recovery. At first Yu can’t pick out Yukiko or Amaterasu in the fray – then a burst of fire and a chorus of inhuman yells alerts the leader to their location. Cerberus and Yamato-Takeru take advantage of their greater mobility to dart in between the larger Personas, every so often pausing to hack at an ear or worry an ankle. Kanji, assisted as always by Rokuten-Maoh, has taken up a defensive position, in case any of the attackers should attempt to pass through the stack of ancient TVs and wreak havoc on the world beyond. 

At the center of the melee are Labrys and Ariadne, the gynoid’s immense, brutal axe providing a startling contrast with the fluid lines of her Persona. A snarling Gdon lunges at her feet, and Labrys jumps straight into the air, breaking the Persona’s back with a single swipe of her axe before landing perfectly on her feet in the midst of the black smoke caused by its dissipation. 

Yu dismounts, switching out Seiryu for Izanagi and immediately charging into the fray. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adachi’s dragon vanish and Magatsu-Izanagi appear, hovering in the air above his master. The leader can only hope that Naoto and the others don’t share Yosuke’s suspicions, or Adachi’s attempts to help might lead to him being attacked as an enemy. 

The criminal locks eyes with Yu, his thoughts seeming to mirror his lover’s. Yu can practically see the images churning in his brain: Yosuke’s glare of disgust when he’d insisted on uncuffing Adachi for their journey, the way the brunette had practically fallen to his knees to beg Rise to ride on Seiryu instead of the unfamiliar dragon. 

Then Adachi seems to come to a decision, and he raises his hand, another tarot card pinched between his second and third fingers. He crushes the card, and Ishtar replaces Magatsu-Izanagi. Yu understands, and nods – with Yukiko on the offensive, their current team lacks a dedicated healer. Placing himself in that role allows Adachi to appear as nonthreatening as possible until he has the chance to explain himself to the new arrivals. 

Naoto cries out as a blast of icy energy from an attacking Loki catches her in the leg. Yamato-Takeru dives, but the agile Persona is not fast enough to stop its master from getting hit. The small detective crumples to the ground, the tide of battle around her threatening to overwhelm her petite form. 

Yu cries out, attempts to press forward through the crush of warring bodies. But Izanagi is engaged in aerial combat with no fewer than five Pyro Jacks – he risks becoming overwhelmed himself if he switches Personas to come to Naoto’s aid. Before the leader can make up his mind, Adachi is there, kneeling at Naoto’s side, Ishtar’s gleaming form raising a hand to surround the blue-haired woman in angelic white light.

The detective stands, fully healed. She turns, finally seeing who it is who has come to her aid – and doesn’t miss a beat, merely directing him with a wordless gesture towards Akihiko, who has sustained several deep cuts across his bare chest. Adachi nods and moves on; Yu’s heart swells with relief and pride. With Naoto here, and the equally rational Shadow Operatives at her side, he can keep Yosuke’s temper in check, keep the team working together at least long enough to take out the monster controlling the Personas and rescue Teddie. 

He takes advantage of a lull in the battle to look around. They actually seem to be winning – a fact he should be less surprised about, given the number of powerful fighters and powerful Personas present. Chie and Yukiko have found each other in the melee and are fighting together, blasts of fire and ice obliterating opponent after opponent. _Just like old times,_ Yu realizes, and smiles despite the situation. Rise alternates between calling out warnings and using her sound attacks to clear safe paths for her allies amidst the chaos. Yosuke is working with Kanji to hold the defensive position; Koromaru and Cerberus herd any enemies they cannot handle between the two of them in the direction of the eager men and their large, imposing Personas. 

It will be nice, Yu muses, to win one skirmish without having to resort to one big, risky move or last-minute coincidence. The number of opponents on the field is rapidly decreasing; soon the allied Personas will outnumber the enemy ones. The leader sighs with palpable relief. _They’re going to survive this. It’s going-_

“Watch out!” Rise’s Persona-enhanced voice echoes in his ear. His head snaps up, startled. The small part of his brain not occupied with panicked wondering about what provoked the shout notices that Adachi raises his head as well. He has just enough time to feel proud of Rise for further signaling her acceptance of Adachi by including him in her telepathic ‘net’ when a shadow falls over the battlefield. 

He looks up, despite knowing exactly what he will see: the night-black wings, the vicious claws, the gleam of an eye from within the folds of shadow. The monster has found them. He understands now that the horde of rogue Personas had not been meant to defeat them after all, but had been merely a delaying tactic to keep them in place long enough for their eldritch commander to arrive. 

Yu freezes, rooted to the spot, feeling as though every drop of blood in his veins has been converted to ice. The crow-creature has them exactly where it wants them. He tries to raise a hand to his head, to shield himself from attack, but even that simple movement is beyond him. 

He waits. 

He breathes, short, ragged pants. He doesn’t dare look over at Adachi, afraid he’ll see nothing but a bloodied corpse where his lover once stood. 

He waits, but the attack never comes. 

The vast creature hovers in the air above them, its wingspan hiding the red sun from view. Watching. Waiting. Yu can swear that he doesn’t hear a single breath from the assembled company. 

Then the thing _speaks_. 

Yu had expected deep, gravely tones, rumbling and sinister like lava sliding over rocks in the depths of a volcano. But the creature’s tone is high, lilting, almost singsong. And, somehow… _familiar_? 

“So, you’ve come back. I knew you couldn’t leave me alone for good.” 

Confused glances dart between the members of the team, none but Yu truly aware of who among them the monster is addressing. The leader, meanwhile, keeps his eyes fixed on Adachi. His lover trembles in fear, but refuses to tear his resolute gray gaze away from the nightmare that had murdered his friends. Pride glows within Yu; the part of his brain not rooted to the spot by fear yearns to close the distance and take the strong, terrified man into his arms. 

“You’ve even managed to find yourself some new little friends to help out. Tell me, how’d you swing that one, _Joker_? Your irresistible charms? Your silver tongue? Or just your usual strategy once again – blatant lies and trickery?” 

Adachi opens his mouth, then closes it. Yu can see the struggle deep within those steady gray eyes. He could call out to the foe, challenge him – the leader can practically hear the words his brave lover would use. _Leave them be, you featherbag. Your quarrel is with me._ But the beast has them at its mercy, poised ready to strike before any of them could so much as call a tarot card to their hand, so he wisely chooses to stay silent. 

The red sky seems to shake, and a crawling horror unfurls in Yu’s gut as he realizes that the thing is _laughing_. “Don’t fret, my brave little fool. I know how you always craved a suitably lavish stage to stand upon – never one for working in the shadows, were you, heart-stealer? I’ve prepared the finale you’ve been craving so badly – if, of course, you haven’t grown too timid and soft to seek me out. I’ll be waiting where you’ve known all along I would be. Your funny little bear is there too – well, he _will_ be, if you arrive quickly enough. The stage is set, _Joker_. It’s time for your last bow. One last heist, for the greatest prize of all!” 

The whole sky seems to darken several shades to a hue even more reminiscent of blood. The air is heavy, oppressive, nearly impossible to breathe. Yu is momentarily certain that, despite its flowery speech about final battles and dramatic stages, the crow-thing is just going to devour them all where they helplessly stand. 

And then it is gone, vanished so quickly that the leader wouldn’t have been able to say which direction it went had someone been holding a gun to his head when they asked the question. A moment passes, two, three, as the Investigation Team and Shadow Operative members gradually regain their feet, their voices and the will to move. 

Impetuous Yosuke breaks the silence first, voicing the question that Yu is sure all assembled parties save for himself and Adachi (and perhaps Koromaru) are thinking. 

“Well, that wasn’t one I’ve ever seen before – have you guys got _another_ destruction-happy god monster you neglected to tell us about?” 

He directs the question at Mitsuru, but it is Labrys who answers, metal knuckles cracking as she adjusts and re-adjusts her grip on the haft of her axe. “None of us have ever seen the thing, ‘cept as a drawin’ in a book. It’s a thing that was beat a long time ago, only it wasn’t….ah, I’m not making any sense. Detective, do you mind doing the explainin’?” 

Naoto nods. “We’ve come to believe that the thing that just menaced us is a supernatural creature called The Raven, derived from the literary figure of the same name. Many years before any of us got our powers, it was challenged by a group of teenagers known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.” 

To Yu’s surprise, Yosuke’s eyes widen, not in fear but in - _delight?_ “I know those guys! They were all over the news when I was a kid back in the city. Some stores even sold merchandise of them – costumes and stuff. I asked my mom for a Joker mask for like five birthdays in a row, but I never got one.” 

“Fascinating,” Naoto deadpans in a voice that clearly says ‘anything but’. “Not to break your fanboy heart, senpai, but evidence obtained from my grandfather’s files indicates that the Thieves were killed in their attempts to defeat this Raven. Your… _impulsive_ decision to enter the TV before I had finished my research prevented me from gathering enough evidence to determine _why_ the Raven chose to re-emerge now, or why it chose Teddie as its target. I had hoped to find a clue among the civilian identities of the Thieves, a name that might link them to us. But I’ve had no luck so far. They’re all unfamiliar. Ryuji Sakamoto, Anne Takamaki, Futaba Sakura…” 

“Tohru Adachi.” 

His voice cutting through Naoto’s pre-rehearsed speech like the single stroke of an expertly wielded knife, the killer saunters calmly over to where the shorter detective stands. Adachi’s voice takes on that lazy, disaffected tone that Yu now understands means he is trying his hardest to lock away an emotional reaction. “Sorry to ruin your dramatic little reveal, Shirogane, but old crow-feathers _did_ say we’re short on time. That’s the name you’ve been looking for – the one that pulls it all together. Tohru Adachi. AKA Joker. AKA the reason your Teddie’s in peril – or “bear-il,” as he’d say. I suppose I _should_ thank you for figuring out the winged bastard’s true name, though –my team never _did_ manage that. As you perhaps guessed, seeing how they’re all dead.”   
   
Yosuke’s reply drips pure venom. “Except for you.” 

Adachi rounds on the hapless boy, sneer and façade fully in place. He claps sardonically. “A round of applause, everybody. Let’s give it up for Hanamura – he’s not incapable of noticing something completely obvious! Oh, what _would_ we do, without his incomparable brain!” 

Yosuke lunges forward. Yu tenses until his nails leave red half-moons in his own flesh. His palms itch with the urge to act – to restrain, grabbing Yosuke’s shoulders, or to comfort, reaching for Adachi’s hand. Either would only exacerbate the already tense situation. He is a leader. His job is to keep this team unified, not take sides. Still, it hurts Yu to see them this way. To see Yosuke so guarded; to see Adachi so cruel.   
What kind of leader is he really, if he can’t make his best friend or his lover smile? 

“Yosuke-senpai, Adachi-san, please….” Rise tries to take the step forward that Yu had denied himself, only to find her arm held in Akihiko’s iron grip. The white-haired policeman shakes his head in warning. Nothing anybody can say will disarm the explosion building between the two antagonistic men. 

“Detec…Adachi-san.” Every line of Akihiko’s body sings with tension, but his voice is level, a monotone study in careful control. “If you’re actually the Raven’s target, then you must know what it meant by ‘I’ll be waiting where you knew all along I would be.’ We need to get there as quickly as possible.” 

Yu shoots the muscular man a tense but grateful smile, understanding fully what Akihiko is doing. Unlike the Investigation Team or the Shadow Operatives, bound tightly through friendship, mutual struggle and the strength of their leaders’ Social Links, this ‘team’ grasps the fragile threads of a single common goal. Nothing can be fixed or agreed upon or talked out. The sole option is to redirect the two men’s angry energy into forward motion. 

Adachi turns away from the still-fuming Yosuke, his mocking tone replaced by a flat, inflectionless one equally painful to Yu’s ears and heart. “Yes. It’s holding Teddie in the place that this world decided was a manifestation of my inner self – what was once Magatsu-Inaba. Your precious leader and I passed it when we first got here. There’s a waterfall there now – must be some kind of cave behind it that the thing is using as its lair.” 

The Magician refuses to let the issue drop. “That sounds an awful lot like you leading us into a trap, _murderer._ ” 

“What, Hanamura, can’t come up with any better insults than literally the only thing most people are aware of about me?” 

“Senpai, stop.” Yu turns, prepared to thank Naoto for her timely interjection, only to find that it was Kanji who had spoken up. “That raven thing killed all of Adachi-san’s friends. I think we can pretty much say for sure he ain’t working with it. It would be….” He casts around for the word, then comes up with it. “Illogical!” he practically shouts. The blonde beams triumphantly at Naoto, who manages a small, tight smile in his direction. 

“Fine.” Yosuke gives ground, but does not surrender. Naoto and Kanji’s grins fall from their faces as one. “Then explain why you’re just _now_ figuring out that the bird is using Magatsu-Inaba as its lair, when you SAID you and Partner passed it at the beginning of this whole damn mess.” 

For a moment, Yu thinks Adachi isn’t going to respond. He stands statue-still, paler even than usual, his mouth set in a expression of anger and nerves. 

Then, bluntly: “Because it’s beautiful now. I didn’t think….” Refusing – or unable – to finish, the killer turns his back, clearly signaling ‘end of discussion’. 

Yosuke continues, prodding at the wound, flinging words against the defenses of rigid back and clenched fists, a targeted, deadly barb that flies as true as the knives he uses in combat. “Well, destroying beautiful things was basically your specialty, wasn’t it?” 

Yu isn’t certain if the strangled gasp that follows Yosuke’s accusation was torn from his lover’s mouth or his own – or both at once, a sympathetic reaction to the emotional pain his best friend is inflicting. He needs to speak. To condemn, to reassure…

He cannot. His throat feels tight, closed-up, an unending version of the moment after being hit by an Agi attack large enough to rob the surrounding area of its breathable air. He looks at Naoto, at Kanji, Rise, Mitsuru, mentally begging _someone_ to say _something_ , to step in where their leader has so grievously failed. 

Naoto does. “Hanamura. Senpai. _Yosuke_ , please. My research, hasty though it was, indicates that our foe is capable of manipulating emotions – specifically, of intensifying negative ones. If you would just-“

“Then maybe _you’re_ the one who’s being influenced, Naoto. The thing is making you side with _a murderer_ over…” 

Adachi raises one arm over his head. Both Yosuke and Naoto fall silent as a tarot card materializes, pinched between the criminal’s index and middle fingers. Yu squints into the red sunlight as he tries to make out the images and words engraved on it. Through the sunspots dancing in his eyes, he can just barely make out the image of a dangling body – the Hanged Man. 

Rather than drawing his gun, an action which could only be interpreted by the hostile crowd of watchers as an attack, Adachi simply drops the tarot card and lets it drift slowly to the ground. When it lands, he raises foot, crushing the card beneath the heel of his sensible brown work shoe. 

Sparks swirl around Adachi as the Persona begins to materialize – slowly, _too_ slowly, Yu realizes, as Yosuke lunges forward in anticipation of what his mind has already categorized as an attack. The brunette’s knife is in his hand and thrown into the air before Yu can call out for Yosuke to stop. It tumbles end-over-end, aim perfected by the stubborn man’s hours of training. Yu squeezes his eyes shut, heart in his throat as he waits for the sickening _squish_ of his lover’s life being snuffed by his partner’s undying hatred…

….only for his ears to be met with the hollow, impersonal _thunk_ of metal striking metal. 

Yu’s eyes fly open. Yosuke had missed? But he had never, in all the time Yu had known him…

No. His aim had been true. The knife had landed exactly where Adachi’s navel had been mere seconds ago. It would have buried itself deep in his stomach had it not been for the gleaming motorcycle that had materialized directly beneath the tall man’s feet, lifting him several inches from the ground and thereby saving his life. 

Instead, Yosuke’s knife lies harmlessly on the bloodred grass, while Adachi perches behind a Hell Biker, hands fisted lightly in the ghostly rider’s heavy jacket. 

The leader tenses, waiting for the retort. Waiting for barbed words to fly from his lover’s lips, to strike true as the brunette’s knife had failed to. He knew that however true whatever scathing condemnation Adachi made would be, it would only serve to rile Yosuke up – possibly enough to prompt another attack. And this time, there would be no perfectly timed Persona appearance to save Adachi’s life. 

To Yu’s surprise, Adachi remains silent. He tightens his grip on the Hell Biker’s jacket. The fearsome Persona’s skeletal hand clench on the handlebars as the motorcycle revs to life. Flames shoot from the tailpipe, hot enough to singe Koromaru’s fur and the tip of Labrys’s ponytail. 

And then the criminal is gone, racing off across the crimson-lit plain towards what had once been Magatsu-Inaba. 

In the silence that follows, Yu feels every eye on him. Not just Yosuke, Chie and Kanji but Akihiko, Mitsuru, Naoto – leaders in their own right, all looking to _him_ to guide them. All expecting him to confidently articulate the perfect next step as though he _hadn’t_ just watched his best friend attempt to murder his lover. 

“Um…” Eloquent speeches came no more easily to him now than they had that long-ago day when he had first led Yosuke and Chie through the TV. But he needed to do this. _For Teddie. For Adachi. No, for all of them._

“Anyone who tries anything like that again is off the team, no exceptions,” the leader announces coldly. He can tell from the look of hurt and betrayal in Yosuke’s eyes exactly who he sounds like right now. “We’re dealing with a monster that can affect how we think, how we act, even how we feel about each other. If you do something to threaten or hurt another member of the team - _any_ member of the team – I will not be afraid to ask Labrys or Koromaru to restrain you.” He indicated the two with a nod. “If that’s okay with you guys? I would guess you’re more resistant to our enemy’s powers than the rest of us.” 

“Anything ya ask. You’re in charge,” Though Labrys’s words were delivered with a sunny smile, they did little to encourage or reassure Yu. Koromaru yipped, presumably in agreement with the blue-haired woman’s affirmation. 

“That settled? Then let’s go.” Not daring to look back, Yu begins walking, keeping his eyes on the ground, following the tracks and scorch marks left behind by Hell Biker’s progress. He tells himself that he’s too tired to summon and ride Seiryu, that he needs to save his energy for the upcoming battles. He tells himself that his chest doesn’t ache at the thought of riding into danger alone, without his lover by his side. 

Eventually, the shuffle of feet behind him indicates that the reluctant team has begun moving as well. Yu walks and walks, pretending not to hear the offers – Kanji’s tentative, Yosuke’s begrudging – to ride on one of the Personas’ shoulders. He does not speak, the ice-cold words having taken far too much out of him already, but his mind whirls with dark thoughts. 

_An Adachi who acts silently. A Yu who speaks cruelly. A team that attacks each other._ With each step towards the Raven’s lair amidst the remnants of Magatsu-Inaba, a growing certainty builds within the reluctant leader. The whole world has been turned upside down, been reshaped into something as unnatural as the red sun beating down on the back of his neck – and that’s exactly the way that their enemy wants it to be.


	20. Treacherous Path

Although both Rise and Mitsuru had confirmed its existence, Yu has a hard time believing there is a cave behind the waterfall. The deluge is heavy with foam and so loud that even Kanji and Akihiko had to shout to be heard. The endless drumming of water against rock seems rings in Yu’s ears like a single, incessant word: _Toh-ru, Toh-ru._ The spray-laced wind shrieks a counterpoint: _gone and lost, lost and gone_

Yu had held onto the tiny, glimmering fragment of hope that Adachi would wait for them at the entrance to what had once been Magatsu-Inaba. That hope had been extinguished as soon as the Team arrived at the waterfall – the scenic vista was silent, save for the crash and thrum of the pounding waters. No rogue Personas or lurking Raven, but no Adachi either. 

“It’s a good thing, right? Him not being here. It means he found some way in,” asserts Yukiko. The innkeeper, always one of the more perceptive members of the group has noticed Yu’s hunched back, downcast eyes and frantic pace. She may not yet have reached the correct conclusion as Rise has, but she can tell that her leader is upset by Adachi’s continued absence and hopes to assuage his worries. 

“Or he chickened out and made for the exit,” Yosuke grumbles. Labrys glares at him pointedly. Chie steps on his foot. He does not speak further. 

“Look,” Naoto gestures at something – a dark patch on the wet grass that she had at first thought to be a shadow. “A tire track from Hell Biker’s motorcycle. Adachi-san did come this way.” 

Akihiko folds his arms and exhales in frustration. “Wish he would’ve left some clue about how we get ourselves in there. _How_ far up did you say the cave opening was?” The boxer addresses this last to the still-visored Rise. 

“Nearly at the top,” the idol repeats with a frown. “Too tall even for your Persona or Kanji’s to reach.” 

“And too small for one of Narukami’s dragons to fly us in,” Mitsuru adds, a similar expression of distress marring her usually calm features. 

Nine pairs of eyes turn towards Yu (Koromaru, who continued to find the scorched grass far more interesting than the humans’ conversation, did not feel the need to look up). Though nobody vocalizes the question, Yu can hear it as clearly as if they had all shouted it at once: _What’s the plan this time, brilliant leader?_

Instead of turning his mind to the task of getting his team into the cave, Yu finds himself thinking about how Adachi must have done it. Unless he had a sensor Persona like Kanzeon in his arsenal, he would have had no way to know where the cave was. He could have flown up and down the cliff face on his dragon, but that didn’t fit the former detective’s modus operandi of solving problems as efficiently and with as little personal effort as possible. Plus, that strategy would have gotten him soaking wet…

…It was no use. The thought of Adachi soaking wet makes Yu think of the encounter in the lake. The feel of slick skin against his own. Droplets of water rolling slowly down his Tohru’s slender body as Yu took him. His lover moaning his name with abandon, regardless of who might hear. Wet kisses pressed against his shoulder and neck, Adachi’s lips as cold as…

…as _ice_.

Suddenly, Yu understands how Adachi had done it, the plan as clear in his mind as if his lover had just whispered it into his ear. A smile, the first since the tense confrontation with Yosuke earlier, creeps onto his face. _Thank you, Tohru,_ he thinks to himself. 

“Chie,” Yu raises his voice so that the fighter can hear him. “Mitsuru.” The redhead nods as he acknowledges her. “On my count, aim your strongest ice attacks at the falls.” 

“One…” He feels the weight of Loki’s tarot card in his hand. 

“Two…” He crushes the card in his hand. Suzuka-Gongen and Artemisia stand impassively behind their masters, arms and weapons pointed at the ever-rushing torrent. 

His shout of “THREE!” is lost amidst cries of _”Bufudyne!”_ from the women. Two white beams of pure concentrated cold strike the waterfall simultaneously. Seconds later, Loki’s Niflheim provides a third frigid bolt, and, slowly but surely, the cascading water begins to freeze. 

Yu’s brow is damp with sweat from sustaining his Persona’s attack for so long. Chie is panting; Mitsuru’s face is flushed as red as her hair. But their success stands proud – a gleaming pillar of ice where the waterfall had once been. 

“Step two,” the silver-haired leader calls out. “Yukiko, Koromaru, melt a hole where the cave entrance is. Rise, help them out, make sure they’re on target.” He lets Amaterasu and Cerberus carry out this phase of the plan themselves, not wanting to drain himself completely before the battles that certainly awaited them within. 

Yukiko shouts, Koromaru yips, and red-orange flame began to lick at the frozen column. Soon, a jagged-edged hole reveals the mouth of the cave lurking behind what had once been a waterfall. Rise had been right – it was far too high for even the largest of their Personas to reach. 

_What would Tohru do?_ Yu asks himself, and the next phase of the plan springs fully formed into his mind. He calls out instructions and his team follows, moving fluidly, working seamlessly. Even Yosuke does not voice a single complaint. 

Labrys calls forth Ariadne to produce a massive coil of shimmering thread, which Yamato-Takeru – the most mobile of the assembled Personas – weaves into an approximation of a rope ladder. Yosuke fastens one of his knives at each corner of the contraption. Rokuten-Maoh and Caesar grasp the knives in their massive, inhuman hands, tossing the ladder upwards towards the hole that had been burnt into the ice. Yu allows himself to participate again for this step, helping Yosuke control the ladder’s path with well-timed bursts of wind. Though things between them are still undeniably tense, it feels good to work with his partner again, both men’s faces set in grim determination as they concentrate on the task at hand. 

Despite mentally reassuring himself that this is exactly the kind of thing Adachi would come up with, a part of Yu is still convinced that the plan. He holds his breath, waiting, anxious, until the solid _thunk_ of metal striking ice tells him that the knives have found their mark. 

“Nice, Senpai!” Kanji congratulates him. 

“Not something I’d have come up with in a million years,” Mitsuru admits. “How ever did you think it up?” She stares at him, her eyes probing, as if attempting to pry the plan’s source from his very brain. 

“Just…creative thinking, I guess?” Yu responds, fully aware that it is a rather weak excuse. Mitsuru’s eyes narrow, not quite believing him, but she lets the topic drop. 

“Labrys, you climb up first,” Yu directs the gynoid. He hates having to ask any member of his team to take the risk of testing the ladder’s stability, but he knows that Labrys would be in the least danger from a fall, and can use her inhuman strength to help hold the ropes steady at the top. 

One by one, the team scales the improvised ladder. It’s not a pleasant climb – the frozen waterfall’s proximity keeps the temperature several degrees below comfortable, and Ariadne’s spidersilk feels vaguely sticky to the touch - but everyone manages to make it up without incident. Akihiko ascends last, having bested Kanji in rock-paper-scissors for the honor of carrying Koromaru. The albino dog, hanging from the boxer’s broad back in an improvised sling crafted from Chie’s jacket, pants heavily, as if in sympathy for his human friend’s difficult task. 

When the team has assembled at the top, Yosuke retrieves his knives, Mitsuru and Naoto pull the ladder upwards so that no non-winged rogue Personas might follow them up, and Koromaru works with Yukiko to melt the ice, obscuring their means of entry. The leader’s head throbs dully at the thought of having to repeat the monumental task on their way back, but he reminds himself of the necessity of protecting their backs and begrudgingly adds Surt’s bursts of flame to his teammates’ efforts.

Once the column of ice has again become a raging waterfall, the team turns towards the depths of the cave, taking their first looks at the interior of the Raven’s lair. Ten mouths (again sans Koromaru) fall open in shock. 

Somehow, despite his experiences with the many bizarre buildings that were wont to appear in the TV World, Yu had been expecting the interior of the cave to, well, remain cave-like. It had fit with what Labrys had told him about their foe’s identity – a Gothic monstrosity, a bird-devil drawn to gloom, darkness, misery and loss. 

His guess had been completely wrong. For about twenty feet past the entrance, it remains a cave, with rock walls and stalactites dangling ominously from the ceiling. Beyond that, the passageway widens into what appears to be the entrance hall of a vast, ornate castle. Red plush carpet coats the floors. Portraits of oddly dressed men and women hang in massive bejeweled frames. A set of stairs rears impossibly high, leading up to some distant second story. Its banisters are carved of a metal far too shiny to be anything other than pure gold. 

The shocked silence into which the team has fallen is interrupted by the sound of…laughter? 

Yukiko doubles over, her trademark giggles echoing off the walls of the cave-castle. Chie tilts her head and frowns – even she is confused as to what had set off her closest companion’s hilarity.

“You ok, Yukiko-senpai?” Kanji asks tentatively. 

“Yes—haha—I just---hehehe---this castle!” the dark-haired woman manages to gasp out between bursts of laughter. “It’s---heh---even more ridiculous than—hahaha---mine was!” As Chie rubs her back soothingly, Yukiko finally manages to regain her composure. “I don’t feel nearly so embarrassed anymore!” 

A few other team members – Rise, Akihiko, Labrys – stifle chuckles of their own at the inn proprietress’s admission. The tense mood seems to lighten a bit. Even Yosuke cracks a smile. 

However, like seemingly all good things, the moment of levity is not allowed to last. No sooner has the team’s laughter die down than the distant sounds of battle become audible, echoing from somewhere up the stately grand staircase. 

Yu doesn’t even have to give the command. His Team breaks into a run, Personas appearing silently behind their masters as the group charges up the stairs. Yu’s heartbeat speeds up from more than exertion as his ears begin to pick up something more than just the expected ring of clashing swords or the sizzle of flame hitting flesh. 

_Shouting. Voices._

Did the Raven have something more than merely enemy Personas in store for them? 

The stairway is both long and steep, and even Akihiko and Chie are panting when the group finally clears the last step. They emerge into a room only slightly smaller but somehow even more ostentatious than the entrance hall had been. In addition to the same plush carpet and elaborate portraits, suits of armor stand at the ready in each corner of the room. A massive gold-and-silver chandelier hangs from the ceiling.   
And on the opposite side of the room is Adachi, using Magatsu-Izanagi to do battle with a group of Personas Yu has never seen before. Yu’s lover is firing his gun into the fray with careful precision despite his torn left sleeve and the long, shallow cut visible along his arm and shoulder. 

He’s also, Yu realizes with shock and confusion, soaking wet. 

Someone is speaking, probably saying something about the unknown Personas, but it all just sounds like a roaring in Yu’s ears. _Tohru,_ his brain screams even as his lips stay silent. _Tohru, he’s hurt, he’s…_

“Go to him, Senpai.” Naoto’s hand is firm on the small of his back, pushing him insistently forward. “We can handle this.” 

He runs forward, feet flying over the crimson carpet. Around him, he can hear the sounds of Persona clashing with Persona as the battle begins. He feels a gust of wind at his back, and at first thinks that he had accidentally been hit by a stray Garu spell from one of the combatants until he realizes that the wind is pushing him forwards, aiding his steps. When he glances over his shoulder, he sees Yosuke watching him intently, Jiraiya unengaged with any of the enemies. His partner’s expression is unreadable, but Yu _knows_. He smiles, but Yosuke has already turned away, seeking out enemies for Jiraiya to fight.   
He stops his headlong charge a scant few inches away from Adachi, the presence of his team stopping him from greeting his lover with anything other than words. “Tohru, you’re-“ 

Adachi turns, speaking at the same time, their voices overlapping each other in mutual confusion. “Yu, you’re-“ 

“—soaking wet?” 

“—completely dry?” 

Silence briefly reigns as both men try to process what they’re seeing. Finally, Adachi, confused: “How did you—“ 

“Ice,” Yu anticipates the question before he can finish asking it. “I mean, I—we—froze the waterfall, then—a rope ladder, climbed up the ice, I….” He lowers his voice, blushing. “I was only able to come up with the plan because I asked myself ‘what would you do?’”

Adachi’s eyes widen in amazement. Now that Yu is once again close to his lover, he can see that Adachi is not just damp but thoroughly soaked – his shirt sticks to his skin, his pants are a wrinkled, crumpled mess, and water drips off the end of his tie to create puddles on the thick carpet. “How did you—“ he begins, but Adachi cuts him off. 

“I flew through the falls with one of those angel-type Personas carrying me,” the dark-haired man explains. “I figured there wasn’t time to come up with some elaborate plan like I usually would. I… _I_ asked _myself,_ ‘what would _you_ do,’ Yu!” 

At this, Yu can no longer help himself. He bundles his sopping wet lover into his arms, holding him tightly against his chest, not caring either about who might see or the fact that his own shirt is quickly soaked. For a moment, he is so wrapped up in hugging his brilliant, foolhardy Tohru that he fails to take in the bizarre scene that has developed around him. 

A furious _yip_ from Koromaru draws the pair out of their brief peace. Akihiko shouts something that sounds like a taunt, and an unfamiliar voice responds in kind. There are other noises, too, _human_ noises – battle yells and cries of pain and a high, eerie laughter that _definitely_ doesn’t belong to anyone on his team. Adachi’s face whitens and his jaw tightens as he looks around himself. Yu realizes that the man in his arms is shivering despite the warmth that his body heat now provides – something is wrong, and it’s not just the water or the wound he had sustained on his arm. 

The leader stares around the room, wide-eyed, as he finally understands what he’s seeing: the enemy Personas that his team are fighting aren’t the rogue, unattached ones they had encountered through the TV World. 

These ones have _masters_. 

Yu counts nine human figures and something short, lumpish and bipedal that reminds him vaguely of Teddie. It takes the stunned leader a moment to understand exactly why the enemy Persona users are so easy to differentiate from the members of his own team. 

Each and every one of them seem to be made not of flesh and blood, but of a pure, glittering golden metal. 

Despite their strange bodily composition, the team’s opponents move and react and speak as if they were humans – humans possessed of impossible quickness and strength. A metal girl with bushy pigtails easily dodges every single kick Chie aims at her. Another girl, this one with short hair and a furious expression, matches Akihiko punch for punch. Kanji brings a heavy iron plate down on the head of a slender male; it snaps in two as though it were made of cardboard. 

Only the similarly inhuman Labrys manages to hold her own, despite facing down two enemies at once. She is hounded by two girls who look barely older than Nanako. They seem to be twins – twin smirks on golden faces, twin caps affixed to twin shiny metal heads. A winged Persona Yu doesn’t recognize dives towards Ariadne, and suddenly the leader understands. 

_Caroline…and Justine…my sisters…your ignorance killed them…_ Margaret’s voice echoes in his mind. He releases Adachi from the hug, places his hands on his lover’s shaking shoulders, his tone imploring as he seeks answers. 

“Tohru, are these…metal _things_ …your old teammates?” 

Adachi’s nod sends his heart plummeting somewhere around the depths of his lower intestine. They’ve fought Persona users before, of course – well, they’d fought _each other,_ in the bloodred haze of the Grand Prix – but those had been one on one duels. Not like this. Not all out war between two teams terrifyingly equal in strength and skill. 

The killer’s tone when he finally speaks is as bitter as his former boss’s coffee preference. “Gold-hungry hooligans, the media called us – looks like we finally found gold, but not in the way any of us ever wanted it.” 

Yu takes one of Adachi’s hands in both of his. “Tohru, please. It’s not them. They’re not real. They’re…” 

“Dead,” his lover spits, “but that doesn’t make it any easier to fight them. _You_ should know.” 

And he does, of course. Yellow-eyed monsters, wearing Chie’s face, Kanji’s, Yukiko’s, _Yosuke’s_. Hadn’t he faltered more than once, when the time had come to drive a sword into his dearest friends’ guts? He opens his mouth, prepared to tell Adachi to focus on healing or casting support spells or…

…The cat-thing fires a heavy slug from a slingshot, knocking Mitsuru backwards. One of the girls harrying Labrys has somehow gotten Koromaru by the scruff of the neck. Yosuke’s Jiraiya flees from a skull-faced Persona’s relentless advance. The gun an empty-eyed, sneering man points at Naoto’s temple is at least three times larger than the one she’s desperately aiming back at him. Rise’s voice echoing inside his skull, _they’ve got someone with powers like mine, she’s blocking my scans, I can’t get any information on them_ …

“Information,” Yu tells Adachi. 

“What?” His lover’s brow furrows. 

“You can’t fight them. I understand. I know. So help us. Get to Rise, and tell her everything you know about them. What weapons they use, their Personas’ strengths and weaknesses. Please…Tohru, it’s our only hope.” 

Adachi nods, resolute. For a moment, he squeezes Yu’s hands tightly in his own, brushes his lips against the leader’s forehead. Then he is gone, and Yu turns to the battle with a faint spark of renewed hope.   
Seeing both Yukiko and Misturu still engaged with their metallic opponents, Yu summons Kikuri-hime and sets to work. Their enemies’ strength means that he is needed seemingly everywhere at once. No sooner has he healed Akihiko’s black eye than Chie cries out, no sooner has he soothed the whip marks torn across her back than Kanji grunts as his faster opponent manages to knock his legs out from under him.   
He’s just finished helping Kanji to his feet when Rise practically screams inside his head, insistent. “Yosuke! And Senpai! Wind, _now!_ ”

Yu turns to see the skull-faced Persona bearing down on him. He switches Kikuri-hime out so fast that he isn’t entirely sure _what_ he calls in in her place. The leader’s blast of wind strikes the enemy Persona head-on, while Yosuke’s catches it from behind. The skull pirate-thing falters, falls, fades…

…and, as it does, its master, a stocky guy with short-cropped hair similar to Kanji’s, dissolves into a pile of glimmering golden dust. 

Panting with over-exertion, the leader manages to catch Adachi’s eye. The dark-haired man is standing beside Rise, one hand on her shoulder, whispering a constant flow of information into the idol’s ear. Yu smiles as, little by little, with the aid of Adachi’s knowledge, the tide of battle begins to turn in their favor. 

Akihiko abandons his slug-fest with the short haired girl, instead teaming up with Kanji to take down Mitsuru’s opponent with a flurry of lightning bolts. The cat dissolves into dust just as its human once-companion had. Koromaru manages to separate the twin girls, herding one towards Labrys and the other towards the now-unoccupied Yosuke. They are not nearly as strong apart; each falls quickly to axe and knife respectively. Mitsuru, freed from her battle with the cat-creature, assists Chie in taking out her pigtailed opponent’s elegant Persona with several perfectly aimed Bufu spells. Rise shouts another command, and Yu switches to Surt to help Yukiko make quick work of a samurai-looking Persona belonging to the slender man who had been fighting Kanji. 

There are only four enemy Persona users left – Akihiko’s brutal-fisted opponent, the smirking man still aiming an oversized gun at Naoto, a frizzy-haired woman who had been fighting Yukiko, and the enemy navigator, hovering at the edge of the battlefield with the aid of her eerie, disc-shaped Persona. 

“Alright, Senpai, we’ve got this!” Rise cheers. “Adachi-san says that those two girls’ Personas are weak to a kind of magic none of us use, so our best bet is physical attacks. Let’s try…” 

Before she can finish talking, the battlefield is plunged into darkness. There is a _tap, tap, tap_ against the room’s single window – and then, suddenly and violently, it shatters. Glass flies inward, forcing Yu and his allies to duck. That high, eerie, somehow _familiar_ chuckle fills the cavernous chamber. 

“Oh, my dear heroes, did you really think it was going to be that _easy_?” 

The lights return. Yu instantly wishes they hadn’t. 

The Raven is among them. 

It hovers just below the chandelier, casting the team and their metallic opponents alike in shadow. It is enormous, so big that the leader’s brain can barely comprehend how it manages to fit in the room. Its claws are knife-sharp, its beak serrated, its eyes glimmering red coals. In one massive claw it clutches something yellow and white and very, very still.

_Teddie._

With another peal of echoing, unhinged laughter, the Raven drops its prisoner at Yu’s feet. Heedless of the danger, Yukiko and Yosuke rush to their fallen friend’s side. 

“He’s alive,” Yukiko announces, relief and worry both evident in her voice. “But he’s hurt.” 

“He’s barely breathing,” Yosuke adds. “And shivering all over. Who knows how long he’s been forced to stay in his human form in here. “The hotheaded brunette glares at the Raven, not seeming to care that it could swoop down and peck his heart out at any second. 

“There’s your pathetic prize, Joker,” their foe practically giggles. “I’m sure you’re all aware of how the story goes next. You fight the big evil demon-god-monster, and then you get to go home to your happy little lives and your shiny little world.” It pauses, ominously, and Yu gets the feeling that something is terribly, horribly wrong. He’s faced down evil gods before – three of them, to be precise – and something feels _off_. 

Izanami had been cold, an observer who at her core had really just sought to _understand_ humanity in a way that beings of her kind never could. Hi-no-Kagutsuchi had been hot, impetuous, angry – but angry at the world in general, not at any of them in particular. Gods and concepts, Yu knew from experience, were something on a phenomenal scale, beyond human comprehension even when they deigned to take a form that allowed them to meddle in the affairs of humanity. In all his years as a Persona user, Yu had never known one to be so…so…

…So _personal_.

“Unfortunately, that’s not how it’s going to go today – because there is one among you who doesn’t deserve to be called a hero. Who never _will_ be a hero, no matter how desperately and futilely he struggles to become one. So before we get to that big final fight, let’s make it perfectly clear exactly who was responsible for this little _adventure_ you all have just undertaken.” 

The Raven begins to shrink. Feathered wings become a long black coat, fluttering slightly in a nonexistent wind. Sharp claws shift into black heeled boots, extend upwards into red-gloved, fully human hands. Where there was once a beak there remains a pale, sneering face, covered in a narrow white mask. 

And the eyes that had glowed an inhuman red now shine a dangerous, familiar yellow. 

“Didn’t you know, Joker? You’re the bad guy. Then, now, forever. There’s no escaping it – you’re the villain of _this_ story, too.” 

Yu dares a glance at his lover. He has seen his Tohru stand tall and unafraid in the face of myriad dangers, but now Adachi is terrified. His eyes are wide, his face chalk-white – he is reduced to a frightened child as the reality of the situation finally fits him. 

“It’s an old, trite, overused line, isn’t it, _Tohru_ , but I never could resist a classic.” The monster that wears Adachi’s face takes another step towards the assembled team, the _click_ of his heeled boots muffled by the thick carpet. 

“How did it go again, Joker? Oh, that’s right. I remember. _I am the Shadow, the true self_. I’m you, Tohru, and you’re me, and I’ve been waiting a _damn_ long time for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (oh Persona I love you but why are fight scenes in this fandom so difficult and complicated to write) 
> 
> Well, here we are. There were actually only a couple of plot points I had decided on before I started writing this story, and this was one of them. The monster lurking at the end of our ragtag Team's journey was always going to be wearing Tohru Adachi's face. 
> 
> I'll admit I'm pretty nervous about how this revelation will go down with all of you - not QUITE as nervous as I was back in Chapter 10, when the Adachi-is-the-Phantom-thief bit happened, but nearly so. Shadow Adachi is a concept that has been done a LOT in fanfiction, so in some ways having him as the final boss is more daunting to me than creating my own fully original god-monster-boss in The Raven. I can only hope that those of you who have followed this story so far will like this - or at least be OK enough with it that it doesn't turn you off from seeing how it all ends. Only three more chapters to go from here - and they're all going to be pretty intense ones, so I hope all you readers come along for the ride.


End file.
